Employment Rights Bill

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Runcorn and Helsby) (Lab)]

I stand here not only as the Labour MP for Runcorn and Helsby, but as a former trade union convener and shop steward for the wonderful trade union Unison. I am also a GMB member and a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. I am proud to have the opportunity to speak in this Parliament with a trade union voice, coming from a working-class background, and as part of a Labour Government. How fantastic is that? I also proudly refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Have a look: it is very clean money—trade union money.

This is an important day for the history of the labour movement and for industrial relations in this country. This Employment Rights Bill is pro-business, pro-worker and pro-growth. This is exactly the change that we were elected to make, just a few weeks ago. The Bill works in partnership with business and trade unions. It is not the work of fiction—I say this respectfully—that the shadow Minister described in his response to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. Labour Members are pro-jobs, but pro good jobs. We are pro-business, but pro good business. The Bill is also good for Britain. We want to turn the page on an economy that has been blighted by insecurity, poor productivity and low pay, and we want growth that leaves nobody behind in our communities.

I pay homage to the architects of this landmark legislation: the trade unions, of course; the former shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald); my good friend the Deputy Prime Minister; and my neighbouring MP and good friend the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders). We were elected on a manifesto for change, and today that change begins—delivered within 100 days, as the Deputy Prime Minister said.

The Bill brings forward 31 employment reforms to help young and not-so-young workers alike. It marks the end of exploitative zero-hours contracts and fire and rehire practices, establishes day one rights to paternity, parental and bereavement leave for millions of workers, improves statutory sickness pay and collective bargaining, and provides for fair pay agreements. It means that 9 million people will have protection from unfair dismissal from day one, and that over 1 million people on zero-hours contracts will benefit from a guaranteed hours policy. This will help many in all our constituencies. An additional 1.5 million parents taking unpaid parental leave will be brought into scope of employment rights from day one. This Bill is a game changer. It is a manifesto commitment that I and everyone on the Labour Benches were proud to be elected on, and I look forward to our labour coming to fruition over the next few months and years.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Sarah Gibson.

Building Safety and Resilience

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Runcorn and Helsby) (Lab)]

I congratulate the new hon. Member for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson) on a brilliant maiden speech—it was quite emotional at the end there—and all hon. Members who have made maiden speeches today. My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Oliver Ryan) is still a young lad now, but he was an even younger lad when I had the displeasure of campaigning with him in Burnley—he had shorts on, but he still managed to win. It is great to see him in his place and it was a pleasure to listen to his maiden speech.

This debate is obviously about a very serious matter. My thoughts, and the thoughts of everyone in the Chamber, are with the 72 people—men, women and children—who lost their lives in the Grenfell fire over seven years ago. It was an appalling event and the survivors and the community are yet to see justice. That might mean criminal prosecutions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) rightfully highlighted—I know he is urging for that to happen at pace, as he did yesterday during Justice questions—or, in regard to the broader building safety crisis, ensuring that buildings are made safe at pace.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s phase 2 Grenfell report and recommendations make for difficult reading. In fact, digesting them will make us angry. We all have to channel that anger, collectively and responsibly, to ensure that the victims of Grenfell and previous fires, such as Lakanal and in Kirby, are responded to by the body politic and the new Government—my good colleagues and hon. Friends now on the Front Bench. Just think about this: each and every one of those 72 people who lost their lives should still be with us today, enjoying the life that we enjoy and having the frustrations that we have.

As the report says, the event was entirely preventable. It was entirely predictable. But the lessons from history, whether that be Lakanal or the earlier fire in Kirby, were not learned. They were not acted upon by successive Governments of all political persuasions or by industry. I will not name the companies referred to in the report for obvious reasons to do with the court case. Government, product manufacturers—you name it, Grenfell was the result of organisations and individuals, as the report says, being systematically dishonest. Dishonesty was hardwired into the construction and building industry, putting profit before people’s lives.

We cannot escape the fact that this was a political decision, driven by ideology. The coalition Government are referenced in the report: their time in office was basically a bonfire of red tape. It was deregulation—build them high, build them cheap and refurbish them cheap—and the consequences are all too clear. Indeed, residents of Grenfell alerted the council of the day, regulators and the powers that be that this was an accident waiting to happen, and it did happen, with all those consequences for all to see.

Of course, some of this has continued. We have had companies gaming tests of products that were put on high-rises—products that should never have been there. Let us be frank: those products are solidified petrol. Thousands of them were put on high-rises up and down the country—high-rises insulated by solidified petrol. This country is quite unique in the fact that it greenlighted those products through deregulation. It is no coincidence that we had fires such as Lakanal and Grenfell.

[Marie Goldman]

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the gaming of the system and the tests. Was he as appalled as I was to read about the way in which those tests were gamed? It is said that those products, which were designed not to burn, failed the tests, so the companies went back a second time. One of the issues with the tests was that the temperature had to not rise too much, so the companies insulated the temperature gauges rather than admit that they had a product that ultimately was not fit for the purpose they were trying to sell it for. Is he appalled as I am that that practice was allowed to happen, and does he agree that the testing houses need to shoulder some responsibility for the fact that it was allowed to happen?

[Mike Amesbury]

Absolutely I am appalled, and as I have said, those products are still with us. My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Margaret Mullane) will refer to a recent incident in Dagenham where they were trying to remediate the problem.

[Margaret Mullane (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)]

In September 2020, an external wall survey revealed that the cladding on the Spectrum building in my constituency was not compliant with building regulations. Works to remediate that building were not actioned until three years later, in July 2023. The building was then engulfed by flames a few short weeks ago, with only 20% of the remediation works still outstanding. Does my hon. Friend agree that urgent steps are needed to massively scale up the process of remediation?

[Mike Amesbury]

I agree with my hon. Friend. She has demonstrated how alive and kicking this issue is, and the need for the new Government—who have not been in power very long; less than 10 weeks now—to step up and step in on the issue of regulation and remediation. I know that they will do just that.

Because of campaigners—whether it is Grenfell United, the all-party parliamentary groups on fire safety and on leasehold, the cladding action groups, or hon. Members in this place—we now have stronger regulation in the form of the Building Safety Act. As the new shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), has said, there was considerable cross-party work over that period of time, and I was the shadow housing and planning Minister throughout that 13-week process. We certainly have a stronger regulation framework now to remediate those buildings, and as the Minister mentioned, a considerable amount of money has been committed—billions of pounds—but the Act undoubtedly has some holes.

Remediation is not done at pace—it is incredibly slow—and it is cladding-centric, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman), which means it does not cover the broader fire safety issues that it should cover. The new Labour Government and the ministerial team have quickly discovered—they are crystal clear about this—that the remediation process is incredibly slow, and they are going to turbocharge it. Seven years on from Grenfell, only 29% of buildings have been fully remediated. I think the Minister mentioned that up to 7,000 buildings have been identified, so the task in hand is incredible. It is alarming, but following the Grenfell inquiry phase 2 report, I know that we will step up and move things on at pace.

Members have mentioned insurance premiums. I find it somewhat bizarre that in a number of remediated buildings the insurance premiums are going up. The shadow Minister referred to that. How can that be? If something is safer, surely the risk has gone down. I think there are some fundamental questions to ask there. There are certainly issues about commissions being passed on to management agents and freeholders, and a plethora of other things are causing insurance premiums to go up.

Ministers certainly need to ensure that there is intervention on things being passed on in service charges, such as insurance, so that we can bring down costs. It may be that we should have a similar model to that for flooding. With Flood Re, the Government have become an underwriter to help bring costs down. I am not going to get overly party political, but interventions by the previous Government did not work, so collectively we have to move things forward.

There is a plethora of issues. We have talked about insurance, and the previous Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who is not in his place at the moment, referred to issues with mortgages. He also mentioned the lack of parity in funding between social housing providers or housing associations and the private sector. Again, that needs to be addressed by the Government. There is a lot of money out there, and a lot of people with responsibility for this mess need to pay.

Some leaseholders in buildings such as the Decks in my constituency are beyond the scope of the Building Safety Act. They do not have protections, but are what are called the excluded leaseholders. Yet if those individual flats are not remediated, it means the whole block is not remediated. It also means that many are facing bankruptcy and cannot sell on. Again, there is a bit more homework to be done at pace by the new Government to ensure that there is justice for leaseholders, who are innocent in this whole toxic mess.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater mentioned one of the key recommendations in the phase 2 report about the regulator, and I will conclude on this point. At the moment, the Building Safety Regulator is in the Health and Safety Executive and, as he said, I am not convinced it is resourced as it should be. That adds to the mix of confusion around accountability, as does the fact that there are several pots—four or five different pots—of finance. We need one single regulator, accountable to a Minister, to get a grip and provide the drive to remediate such buildings at pace.

Finally, justice is certainly about ensuring that all those buildings up and down the country are safe, but it is also about ensuring that those responsible for this—those responsible for Grenfell—are brought to account through criminal prosecutions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

The right hon. Lady has put that on the record. It speaks to my earlier point about the importance of political will in this space. If we just wait for something to happen, we are not going to see it. There needs to be political grip at the national and local level, and we will certainly play our role in that. On her point about what her constituents lived with, she would have been sitting on the Opposition Front Bench seven years ago—I was behind her—when everybody said, “Never again. What action can we take? No job is too big or small.” But that is not what happened. It was a huge broken promise to the British people—her constituents and beyond.

[Mike Amesbury]

On the point about political will, the leasehold system is unfortunately still alive and kicking. I know that many of us look forward to seeing that feudal system kicked into the history books via oncoming legislation. It seems that service charges have become a cash cow for some interesting characters in the industry. What will the Minister and his team do to ensure that we move things forward, and that commonhold is the de facto tenancy in this country for flats?

[Alex Norris]

My hon. Friend heard what I said about leasehold, and what we said in the manifesto that we both stood on. I will get to service charges shortly, because both he and our hon. Friend the Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford) made that point very well. I think they will be glad to hear what I have to say.

Let me deal first, though, with prosecutions, referring particularly to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell). He has the closest stake in this issue, and spoke today with incredible passion. I know that he will be an outstanding advocate for his community, and I am sure that he will bring forward a lot of his frustrations about the pace of change. I think that point was well made. He has made multiple times the point about prosecutions. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out in his recent statement to the House, those affected have waited too long for justice, and those responsible must be held accountable. As the Met police have said, this will take time. It is one of the largest and most complex investigations that they have ever had to conduct, with 180 officers and staff dedicated to it. We fully support the Met and the Crown Prosecution Service as they carry out their investigations. They must be given space to do that.

Youth Homelessness

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Dame Siobhain. I speak not only as the shadow Minister responding to this debate on youth homelessness, but as a former Connexions manager. It was my job, with my team, to get people into education, training, work and housing.

Like other hon. Members, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) for securing this important debate. As a former shadow Minister and the joint chair of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness, she has a genuine passion for this subject, as she showed eloquently in her powerful speech. Like myself and many others, she is determined to provide the homes, support and housing that young people need.

Yesterday, as my hon. Friend said, this Government broke even more records on homelessness. Despite bold promises to end the most visible form of homelessness—rough sleeping—by the end of this year, in reality, rough sleeping, which affects many young people up and down the country, rose by 27% last year. That is more than double the number of people recorded as rough sleeping in 2010, when records began.

Despite spending a considerable amount of money—I imagine the Minister will reference a figure around £2.3 billion—the current approach is simply not working. It is broken. It is there for all to see, whether it be a visible form of homelessness on the streets of London, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham and so forth, or the people many of us know who come to our surgeries and who are sofa surfing or living in temporary accommodation. Is the Minister confident that the Government will deliver on the target of ending rough sleeping by the end of 2024? What is not working? It would be useful to have a response in the not-too-distant future.

[Adam Holloway]

For street homeless people who are drug-addicted, part of the problem is that if someone needs to beg for a couple of hundred pounds a day to feed their addiction, the answer is not for them to be accommodated somewhere in south London. They need to be at a main station or in a capital city to get the money to pay for the drugs. I think the hon. Member will agree that that is a real conundrum.

[Mike Amesbury]

I do not disagree with the hon. Member. In fact, I recently met Baroness Casey, who has worked across Governments of all political colours, and she repeated that exact argument. I agree 100%.

Again, as referenced by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree, another record was broken yesterday: 112,660 families now live in costly temporary accommodation, costing around £1.8 billion a year—a 12.1% increase since last year. Shamefully, we now have 145,800 children living in temporary accommodation, and in that regard I pay tribute to you, Dame Siobhain, for all the work you have consistently done and will continue to do in championing their cause.

Youth homelessness is also up, with 136,000 young people presenting as homeless to local councils—a 5% rise on the previous figure of 129,000—and that is just the tip of the iceberg, if we take account of those who are sofa surfing, in temporary accommodation or bed and breakfasts, or sleeping in friends’ houses on a temporary basis and so on. As my hon. Friend said, young people are often overlooked in the homelessness emergency and get a raw deal from a system that is often overstretched and uninformed. A point echoed by hon. Members across the Chamber today is that training is required to remedy that.

Research by Centrepoint suggests that 67% of young people were not prevented from becoming homeless by local councils last year. I am keen to hear the Minister explain how she will ensure that local authorities, including councils, up and down the country respond to their obligations laid out in the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.

As a Wythenshawe lad, I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend refer to Lord Morris of Manchester, a previous MP for Manchester, Wythenshawe. She is right; almost 40 years on from his speech on youth homelessness in 1985—the year I left school—and despite innovations by the last Labour Government, which left office some 14 years ago, very little has changed. We still have a Government who lack political leadership, operate in silence, provide insufficient support and are certainly not building the genuinely affordable homes that people need. I came into politics because I genuinely want a socially just society. Ending all forms of homelessness must be a driving goal of any future Labour Minister or Labour Government. I commend the great work of all the charities here today—Centrepoint, New Horizon Youth Centre and Depaul UK—and the hundred youth organisations that came together and called for a national youth homelessness plan for the 136,000.

Let me outline what Labour’s approach would be. The four pillars would be, first, upstream and informed; secondly, cross-departmental political leadership; thirdly, the supply of genuinely affordable housing and supported housing for young people; and fourthly, providing a helping hand. Before that, however, an immediate intervention is required on section 21 no-fault evictions. Sadly, since 2019 nearly 80,000 households, far too many of them young people, have been put at risk of homelessness. We must have no more kicking the can down the road with the narrative of court reform. A Labour Administration will end no-fault evictions for good. They will be abolished.

Let me outline the pillars in turn. The first is upstream and informed. On youth homelessness, we need to get upstream of all the problems. All too often, young people become homeless when they are passed between institutions and fall through the many glaring cracks in the system. Early intervention and identification in schools and colleges will be required, with better support for children, parents and carers. I find this quite irritating, because I was previously a Connexions manager and had staff who did exactly that until the coalition Government abolished Connexions. We can learn from some of the good things of the past. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree mentioned data collection, which is a clarion call for the 100 or so organisations working in this area. It should be strengthened and not reliant on freedom of information requests. As my hon. Friend pointed out, that could be achieved by a simple change to the Homelessness Reduction Act.

As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, for individuals at the heart of the homelessness emergency, trauma and mental health issues are often at the core of their story. Homelessness could be prevented and ended for good if we had person-centred psychological support. I know that Centrepoint and other charities provide such support, but we need to hardwire it into the system. Trauma-informed care must be part of a successful strategy. That would please my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree.

The second pillar is political leadership on ending the silos. We have to stop Government Departments operating in silos. It was mentioned that a previous Minister attempted to do that, but let us look at when we have had some success. I mentioned Dame Louise Casey, whom I met again recently. We created a cross-departmental rough sleepers unit that sat in the Cabinet Office and drove that programme forward, and we saw a real reduction in rough sleeping and the use of temporary housing. That was 14 years ago under the Labour Government, and we can certainly learn from that as we work in the context of a new landscape, with metro Mayors and devolved Administrations across the UK.

Pillar three will be building more genuinely affordable homes—social homes, council homes and housing that is youth specific, with the appropriate stock. Supply is key. We have stated that a future Labour Administration will build 1.5 million homes over five years, and genuinely affordable homes—homes for social rent—have to be a fundamental part of the mix. We will build homes on a scale that people in this country have not seen in generations. Last year, the Government created 9,500 homes for social rent. There are 1.3 million people on the housing need register. If we take into account homes that were bought through right to buy and demolitions, the figure is minus 14,000 every year since 2010. The system is broken. We have to build the houses. Labour has to get Britain building again for all our people, but particularly young people.

Finally, the fourth pillar is about providing a helping hand. The Labour party is the party of work—that is what “labour” means. We were set up by the trade unions and the labour movement to provide good, secure work. The current social security system penalises people, particularly young people living independently and trying to get on with a job, education and training. That has to change. My colleagues in the shadow DWP team are determined to ensure that they have good, secure work. We will deal with the systemic issues. There was a reference to care leavers and council tax and so forth. We will provide a hand up to ensure that people can stay in their homes or move to other homes.

Ending youth homelessness is not just a moral imperative, as stated by my good colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree. It costs over £27,000 per individual—£8.5 billion—but the issue is more important than that. It is about young people’s hopes, dreams and futures. I hope that in future as a Minister I can do my bit to provide hope, houses and opportunities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Felicity Buchan]

Rough sleeping has ticked up over the past year, but it is still down from the pre-pandemic numbers and the peaks in 2017. Clearly, every single person rough sleeping is one too many. We have particular issues in London with rough sleepers who have no recourse to public funds, and we encourage support for them, but that is an entrenched issue. The Government are working to address any new flow of rough sleepers; I want to give the House a few examples of that.

We have been working incredibly closely with the Ministry of Justice to address those leaving prison. There are sometimes relatively simple solutions, such as not releasing someone from prison on a Friday, given that there is no local authority support over the weekend. I was very happy to hear that the number of prison leavers who are rough sleeping has gone down by one third, but there is clearly still work to be done.

I have also worked incredibly closely with my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that people are not released from hospital on to the streets. In the winter, we formulated new guidance on that for all hospitals, and we made exceptional money available and suggested that it could be used on hospital discharge.

I work incredibly closely with my colleagues in the Department for Education. The hon. Lady rightly referred to care leavers who are rough sleeping, and I will talk about them in more depth.

We also work very closely with the Home Office. An issue that has come up in the Chamber in the past is that there are a lot of people who have successful asylum claims, and in some instances when they leave Home Office accommodation they go to their local authority for support. We have clearly seen an uptick in successful asylum seekers.

I could not agree more that we need to build more homes, and this Government are on track to achieve our manifesto commitment of 1 million homes during the life of this Parliament; we have a target of 300,000 homes per year. I thought it was a bit rich when the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) said the Labour party would be better at delivering more homes, given that London under the Labour Mayor is the worst-performing region for housing delivery and has required intervention from the Secretary of State.

[Mike Amesbury]

In the last year of the Labour Government, we built 30,000 homes for social rent. The Minister mentioned 1 million homes, but we are not talking about four and five-bedroom homes built by Redrow, Morris Homes and so forth—nice companies though they are—which are beyond the reach of young people; we are talking about homes for social rent. Sadiq Khan has very ambitious plans to build 40,000 council homes, and I am confident that people will give him a strong mandate tomorrow.

[Felicity Buchan]

Well, we will see what the electorate decide tomorrow. One thing that is very clear is that in 2022, London was the worst-performing region for housing delivery and the west midlands was No. 1.

Let me get to the substance of my speech. We can all agree that every young person, no matter where in the country they live, no matter what their personal circumstances may be, deserves a roof over their head and a safe place to call home.

Young people are the future of this country; they will help shape the Britain of tomorrow. That is why this Government are committed to delivering the safe, warm, decent and affordable housing that every young person needs, providing the solid, stable foundation to get on in life and achieve their potential. We are committed to tackling all forms of homelessness and are investing £2.4 billion over three years to help achieve that. Importantly, of that £2.4 billion, £1.2 billion is for the homelessness prevention grant. That is critical; we need to prevent homelessness before it occurs in the first instance.

That money—the £1.2 billion—can be used flexibly by local authorities, to offer financial support for people to find a new home, to work with landlords to prevent evictions, or to provide temporary accommodation. I want to say one thing on temporary accommodation. Clearly, we all want people to be in settled accommodation, but temporary accommodation is an important step to get a roof over people’s heads, ensuring that young people are given the support that they need to prevent or relieve their homelessness.

Someone posed the rhetorical question: what has this Government done to help young people and their homelessness? I would say it is meaningful that we passed the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which was a private Member’s Bill that Government supported and came into force in 2018. That Act has been revolutionary in its effect on our approach to youth homelessness. The Act means that local authorities have a duty to assess, prevent and relieve homelessness across the board, not only for those who are vulnerable. We have helped more than 740,000 households avoid homelessness, courtesy of the Act, and it has been revolutionary.

We have come a long way with that Act, but we are not blind to the challenges that we continue to face. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree asked me about cross-Department strategy to end youth homelessness. We recognise that young people experiencing homelessness are confronted by particular challenges in accessing and maintaining accommodation, but a strategy is very important. That is why this Government published the landmark strategy in 2022 called, “Ending rough sleeping for good”, which prioritises prevention.

I am often asked, “Can you ever end rough sleeping for good?” We defined ending rough sleeping as that it should be prevented whenever possible, but if it cannot be prevented it should be rare, brief and non-recurrent. I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree that data is incredibly important. That is why we are working with the Centre for Homelessness Impact, which has a huge data project in which it is monitoring us and local authorities against these targets: have we got rough sleeping rare, brief and non-recurrent? I have also sat down with the chief statistician and talked to him about the importance of data in homelessness, because it is only when we know what and where the problem is that we can address it.

A key part of our “Ending rough sleeping for good” strategy was the single homelessness accommodation programme, which is worth £200 million in this spending review. We have committed to more in the next spending review. That programme is providing up to 2,000 homes for people sleeping rough or at risk of sleeping rough. It is targeted at young people and at those with complex needs. At least 650 of those homes are reserved specifically for young people. I am delighted to say that Liverpool will receive over £2 million of that funding, delivering 20 homes for single homeless young people to help them live independently. Our rough sleeping initiative in 2024 targets £2.5 million of funding at youth-specific services in eight local authorities across England. That funding provides specialist support for young people, such as outreach workers and prevention officers, and specialist housing for those under 25.

We talked about councils being required to carry out their statutory duties, and I want to make it very clear that councils are required to implement the Homelessness Reduction Act, which puts prevention at the heart of local authorities’ response to homelessness. If there is reason to believe that an individual or household may be homeless or threatened with homelessness within 56 days, the housing authority must carry out an assessment to determine whether that is the case. Of all households assessed for homelessness, 89% were owed a prevention or relief duty.

We have talked about the hidden homeless. That is very important and I would encourage anyone who is hidden homeless to contact their local authority. Our specialist youth homelessness advisers work closely with housing and children’s services across the country, providing advice, support and challenge to local authorities to help improve the delivery of homelessness services and to support compliance with the statutory duties.

We have also discussed the difference between Government data and that presented by Centre Point’s databank research. I am tremendously grateful for all the work that the voluntary and charitable sector does in this space. I have had the privilege of doing many Government visits to charities. I went to visit Centre Point in Wandsworth about a year ago, and I have always been impressed by everything that is done by the voluntary sector. They are an integral part of supporting our homelessness efforts.

Just last week, I visited a youth homelessness house in my constituency, Dashwood House, which was run by the Salvation Army Housing Association. That house was for 18 to 25-year-old women. I was incredibly impressed with the service that they were providing and the move-on support they offered. It was wonderful that a lot of people who had lived in Dashwood House, but who had now moved on to their own settled accommodation, came back to visit that day. I am very grateful to organisations for all their research and work to support those dealing with youth homelessness.

Let me explain the difference in numbers. The Government numbers are official statistics and are closely verified and accredited by the Office for National Statistics. One reason for the differential is that the Centrepoint data includes all initial inquiries to a local authority. The Government report on the total number of homelessness assessments and the numbers of young people owed a homelessness prevention or relief duty. I just wanted to clear up the reason why the numbers are different. The Government numbers form part of the official statistics and follow very robust statistical methodologies.

Clearly, I regret the uptick in homelessness—it is very serious and the Government are doing everything to address it—but the most recent homelessness statistics, published yesterday, show that over 17,000 households had homelessness prevented in the fourth quarter of 2023, and almost 50,000 homeless households were supported to secure accommodation in that same period. This shows that local authorities continue to work hard to prevent and relieve homelessness for all households, including young people.

I want to touch on the issue of care leavers, because this is a very important point; I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree for raising it. We know that young people leaving local authority care can be especially vulnerable, which is why, through our strategy on children’s social care reform, “Stable Homes, Built on Love”, we are working to increase the number of care leavers living in safe, suitable accommodation and to reduce the rate of homelessness among that vulnerable group. To achieve that, the Government are providing the following money: nearly £100 million for local authorities to increase the number of care leavers who stay living with their foster families up to the age of 21; £53 million to increase the number of young people leaving residential care who receive practical help with move-on accommodation, including support from a key worker—that practical help is very important; and £9.6 million over three years to provide extra support to care leavers at the highest risk of rough sleeping.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree asked about social housing priority need for care leavers. Care leavers have priority need up to the age of 20; the hon. Lady suggested that it should be up to the age of 25. I want it to be clear that once care leavers reach 21, they will continue to have priority need if they are vulnerable because of having been looked after. That will continue.

On relation wider housing support, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in the autumn statement that we would restore the local housing allowance rate up to the 30th percentile. That was very important. It took effect in April. It will mean that 1.6 million low-income households will be on average £800 a year better off, and will make it more affordable for young people on benefits to rent properties in the private sector. About one in 10 of those aged 16 to 24 currently lives in the private rented sector. That is one reason why the Renters (Reform) Bill, which passed its Third Reading last week, is so important.

We have talked about building more homes, which I think the entire House would agree is critical. We have the affordable homes programme, which represents £11.5 billion to provide new properties for rent, for low-cost home ownership and for specialist and supported housing. As I have said, we are on track to deliver our manifesto commitment of 1 million new homes within this Parliament.

I conclude by thanking the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree once again for securing this thought-provoking debate. I admire her determination to tackle the causes and impacts of homelessness, particularly for young people today, which is a determination that the Government and I share. I hope I have underlined the scale, depth and diversity of the investment this Government are making to address this challenge. We know that, as a Government, we cannot solve this issue alone. That is why we value so much the support and commitment of local government, charitable partners and great advocates for the homelessness sector across the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham and the hon. Member for Strangford.

I thank Members again. Let us keep working towards our shared goal of ending rough sleeping and tackling youth homelessness.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

As well as trying to criminalise rough sleepers, put them in jail and give them a hefty fine, it is crystal clear that the Government will not meet their target to end rough sleeping by the end of 2024. Rough sleeping is all too plain to see—as we walk into this place or go to any city or town, we see the tragic consequences of Government policies. Is it not now time for Ministers to do the right thing: end section 21 no-fault evictions for good—no ifs, no buts; no excuses and narratives about the courts—and build the homes for social rent at the scale the country needs? If they do not do that, we will.

[Felicity Buchan]

We are abolishing section 21 and building affordable homes. Where are affordable homes not being built? In London.

Building Safety

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Let me start by thanking the Minister for advance sight of the statement. I must be clear that I do not share his enthusiasm that the end of the building safety crisis is somehow near, and neither do campaigners up and down the country, including End Our Cladding Scandal. Just last week, new Government figures, to which the Minister referred, showed that only 21% of high-rise blocks have been fully—I stress, fully—remediated. We are now nearly seven years on from the Grenfell fire, the tragedy where 72 people lost their lives, yet hundreds of thousands of families and individuals are stuck in flats with dangerous, flammable defects, whether cladding, missing fire breaks or wooden balconies. The toxicity of this crisis goes on and on.

Everybody deserves to feel safe in their own home. Despite years of reactive policies from the Government, and now billions of pounds committed through a plethora of funds to fix unsafe homes, progress remains painfully slow for far too many. All of that means that far too many people are living in fear of their lives every day. What those families need is action now to speed up remediation and to hold all those responsible for the building safety crisis to account. Action is needed for all those trapped in unsafe buildings facing eye-watering bills, whether for the black hole of service charges or for insurance premiums. They simply have no control over their future. Action is needed to let the residents of these buildings finally turn the page.

I am disappointed that today’s statement is not much more than a rehashing of statistics and data points that were put in the public domain last Thursday. I am particularly disappointed that it does not include the second staircase guidance, which is desperately needed. The Minister will know that the absence of that guidance has held up the construction of thousands of safe homes across the country. In London alone, the Mayor has said that the botched implementation has stopped at least 38,000 homes from being built. During the delay, key design details have been missing, and both house builders and local authorities have been left in limbo. What is more, some sites have completely ground to a halt. What exactly is taking so long? How many buildings nationwide does the Minister estimate have been held up? It would be useful if the Minister could provide an update on the position on personal emergency evacuation plans, which many campaigners continue to push.

Moving onto the specifics of today’s announcement, I welcome the new initiatives to boost enforcement, but they would more effective if they were part of a broader strategy instead of being reactive, piecemeal announcements. The initiatives are just a drop in the ocean of what is needed. While I welcome the support for council enforcement teams, the Minister and the Government simply cannot pass the buck. The Department needs to play a more active and robust role. I welcome the new regulatory protocol for greater consistency, but I would like to see the details and a timeframe. The Minister rightfully calls out some owners and developers, but will he also call out the manufacturers and make all those responsible for the building safety crisis pay?

Finally, I want to mention the scale of the problem with insurance premiums, which the Minister will have seen reported in The Independent earlier this week. It is constantly raised with me and I know it is raised with the Minister, too. He will be aware of allegations of profiteering and the many thousands of pounds being paid in premiums, in some cases going up by 1,000%, even when buildings have been remediated and made safe. He previously mentioned pooling schemes. The industry has put forward its own scheme, which will go live on 1 April. Residents and campaigners are not convinced that it will bring premiums down, so I would like an update from the Minister today.

The Minister will not need reminding that today’s announcement is just one cog that needs to be turned to solve the building safety crisis. I look forward to working constructively with him to do the right thing for the hundreds of thousands of people still trapped in the building safety crisis. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Fifth sitting)

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I rise to support amendment 1. My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich made an excellent speech in favour of it, and he is right to distinguish between this clause, dealing with enfranchisement, and later clauses on which we will look at the issues from the point of view of right to manage. Given the amount of reference to the Secretary of State in the Bill and that so much is left to him to decide afterwards, it is reasonable to ask the Minister why that has not been applied to this clause—otherwise, it looks as if the Government have considered the matter and ruled out any change in this area, which, as my hon. Friend suggests, is reasonable.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I, too, rise to support this very generous amendment from my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. It is pragmatic, and it would power up the Secretary of State, whoever that might be, to ensure that leaseholders are able to take control in hopefully larger numbers through extended enfranchisement. I hope the Minister will give the amendment very strong consideration.

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Rather than levying fines of £2,500 on the most vulnerable people sleeping rough, as is proposed in the Criminal Justice Bill, will the Minister commit to building a new generation of social housing? The current levels are pitiful and are an embarrassment, are they not, Secretary of State?

[Michael Gove]

No, absolutely not. Our record on building social homes is significantly better than that of the last Labour Government. It is under our Administration that local authorities have been given the chance to take 100% of the receipts from right to buy and to reinvest them in social housing. It is this Government, spending £11.5 billion through the affordable homes programme, who are capable of delivering social homes. As we are talking of billions of pounds, the £28 billion black hole in the shadow Minister’s budget would devastate our housing market.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Fourth sitting)

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We will come back to you at the end, Andy.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Q The CMA—including your good selves—has rightfully highlighted concerns around estate management and some of the charges commonly known as fleecehold. You said you were going to assess that information and publish your findings. Have you done that? It would be incredibly useful in shaping the responses in the Bill and perhaps strengthening some of the regulations particularly around park law.

George Lusty: In parallel to this piece of work on leasehold property, the CMA is conducting a market study looking at the house building sector more generally. As part of that, we have looked at the issue of estate charges, the increasing tendency for roads and other facilities not to be adopted, and the framework of consumer protections around charging for those sorts of services and what individual homeowners then need to pick up not being as good as it should.

We published a working paper on that in November. In particular, we called more broadly for greater adoption of those facilities by local authorities and enhanced consumer protection frameworks. That market study will complete its report in February, when we will issue our findings and recommendations across the piece. Neither Simon nor I is directly working on that, but it is connected because leaseholders face similar issues with the service charges that they have to pay in their properties, particularly in leasehold flat blocks.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q Do you have anything else to add, Simon?

Simon Jones: Only the transparency obligations that I mentioned. The initial transparency obligations about the annual cost of owning a home ought to include, in relation to freehold homes, things such as rent charges. An awful lot of people we spoke to had no idea that there could be annual charges connected to a freehold ownership.

[Mike Amesbury]

Thank you.

--- Later in debate ---

[Eddie Hughes]

You do not have a view. We will not take your professional—

Philip Freedman: I can completely understand that pension funds have invested in part in long-term income that they believed to be secure when they did it—that is, income for 90 years, 990 years or whatever it was going to be. I am told that a number of pension funds and other types of investment entity have invested cautiously, not necessarily buying portfolios where there are hugely escalating ground rents, but either fixed ground rents or modestly increasing ground rents that people would not say were egregious. However, they are still concerned because, in many parts of the country, particularly in the north-east, for example, property prices are so low that even 0.1%—even 1,000th of the price of a flat—would reduce the ground rent. The ground rent might be £100 a year or something, but the cap would result in it being £50 a year or something like that. Obviously, the impact would be great for those portfolios that have hundreds or thousands of these.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q Your organisation has said it is disappointed that the Bill does not deal with the regulation of managing and property agents. Can you elaborate on that? What needs to be included in the Bill?

Philip Freedman: The Law Society has been participating in various working groups following Lord Best’s report, trying to help with the preparation of codes of practice that were intended to sit underneath the regulatory framework for property agents of different types, whether selling agents, managing agents or whatever. We feel that, because tenants often do not know what their rights are, and if they did know what their rights were, they may not want to spend the time or money getting someone to help them enforce their rights, you come back to the people actually doing the management. They need to be proactively willing to be transparent, and to realise that they have duties to the tenants as well as to the landlord. It needs a mindset change in the people who are doing the management. You do not want to rely on tenants having to try and find out what their rights are and then enforcing them. We feel, therefore, that a lot of the changes in the Bill, and other changes that have been talked about, will be better achieved if property managers are regulated, and that the right people with the right tuition being told what their duties are would be improved by regulation.

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

Q Mr Freedman, in terms of your previous but one comment, to Eddie, on how you were told about the potential impacts on pension funds and the like, can you tell us, either now or separately if you prefer, who told you that? What is the source?

Philip Freedman: It was one of the two partners in the firm I had been speaking to. Also, I have heard that various other bodies, like the British Property Federation, have been looking into these issues, and there has been a certain amount of it in the property press. It is only general awareness; I do not know any specifics.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear oral evidence from Giles Grover from End Our Cladding Scandal. He is coming to us via Zoom. For this session we have until 3.50 pm. If the witness can hear me, can he please introduce himself for the record?

Giles Grover: My name is Giles Grover from the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign, which represents leaseholders in unsafe buildings across the country. I will tell you about the background if you don’t mind. In early 2019 we formed a coalition of leaseholder resident groups across the country. I represent leaseholders in close to around 2,000 buildings. Personally, I have been a leaseholder since 2008. I became a director of the residential management company in my building in 2010. I was first told my home was unsafe in August 2017 and I have been heavily involved in the cladding and building safety scandal since then, where it has particularly been clear that the nature of leasehold law has played an intrinsic part in the delays to our homes being made safe.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q What are the main implications of the Bill for remediating residential buildings? There are some good things in it, Giles. What is missing in it?

Giles Grover: There are some good things for leaseholders in general. There seem to be some better things than there were. Part of the problem is that we still do not have full clarity in terms of what the legislation will look like in its final form, and supporting legislation, so it is quite difficult to comment.

On building safety amendments, I am afraid to say I don’t really know what is in there. I have seen that the Opposition have tabled a couple of amendments—new clauses 27 and 28—as a starting point. However, we have been lobbying the Government, meeting the Government, speaking constantly almost on a daily basis, and having regular meetings pushing for further protective measures to make the Building Safety Act operate as intended; but I cannot really see anything there. I have seen a press release saying, “We will apportion leases,” which is something we raised with the Secretary of State a long time ago. I am talking about enfranchised buildings as well. But as it stands, I am still waiting for the Government to bring forward some building safety amendments that will mean that the homes that are unsafe, many of them unsafe for six and a half years, will be finally fixed at pace—at the pace we need and the pace we deserve.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q There is provision to strengthen accountability in terms of remediation and freeholders and ensure that there is more accountability for liabilities. Are the provisions strong enough at the moment?

Giles Grover: Not yet. Again, I had a look at the 140-page Bill and it did not say anything about developers. It talks a lot about the freeholders, but I cannot see anything that will mean that those freeholders will now crack on with making our buildings safe at pace. I cannot see anything that says what the mechanisms will be to oversee that. I fear that the reality on the ground is that the freeholders are still focused on mitigating their own liabilities. Historically they have taken years, for example, to sign grant funding agreements. They have delayed work starting on site. We are seeing those same things happen with developers now.



On a wider point, the Building Safety Act came into play on 28 June 2022. We are now looking at amendments that will make it operate as intended. So I think there needs to be a raft of amendments from the Government. Some of the stuff we have been talking about in terms of their ongoing policy thinking, but ultimately one of the simple things is that we still have too many leaseholders ruled out of protection. We still have too much uncertainty on the ground. So in the King’s Speech, the paragraph that talks about making it operate as intended has a heck of a lot of heavy lifting to do. I need to see the detail before I can say whether it will work or not. I fear, based on my experience, that it is unlikely to be the case.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q One final question. Do you think there should be an amendment to extend the scope of the Building Safety Act, because of the interplay with leaseholders? There are literally hundreds of thousands now excluded from the Act, including buildings below 11 metres and where there might be more than three properties.

Giles Grover: As I said, the new clauses that have been tabled would go some way toward ensuring that those non-qualifying leaseholds for more than three properties are treated the same as qualifying leaseholders. The buildings that the Government currently deem irrelevant because they are under 11 metres would be made relevant.

It is worth just setting the scene. I gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee on the Building Safety Bill in September 2021, and there was a lot of talk of, “We’ll do this, and we’ll do that. We’ll definitely protect you.” We then saw a raft of legislation come out from 14 February 2022. The problem is that it is all very high level and complicated. Some people might get some protection and some people might not. We are all the innocent victims of this scandal. It shocks me that despite the Secretary of State saying on 10 January 2022 that we are shouldering a desperately unfair burden and that industry will pay, two years later I am still talking to Public Bill Committees about what more needs to be done. It is all too slow.

[Andy Carter]

Q I am very conscious that you are a different type of witness to the others we have been hearing from today and we are talking about the cladding scandal. It is very helpful to get your insight on this. I would like to pick up on the questions that Mike has asked you. It would be very helpful if you could be as specific as you can. What is missing from the Bill that you think is a real priority for people who are in a position where they are in a leasehold property and cannot sell because of issues relating to cladding and remediation?

Giles Grover: There are quite a few things missing. The first thing to say is that what you should really do is say that there are no more non-qualifying leaseholders or people who are being arbitrarily ruled out of help. You could do that as an amendment to the Bill. From some of the ongoing campaigning and lobbying that we have done, particularly with the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Act 2023, we fully recognise that the Government do not necessarily want to protect everyone. The problem is that they have spent far too long apportioning liability and talking in theoretical terms. There are still too many ordinary people that are not protected.

Going into the specifics, if there is not the willingness to say, “Okay, we will protect all the victims of this scandal”—which you really should be doing—what we need to do is say, “How can we better protect the ordinary people who still aren’t protected but who the Government say that they want to protect and should protect?”. That goes back to the conversations being had with the Department and the amendments that have been tabled about extending property protection to the first three properties of all leaseholders, because that would mean that everyone is treated fairly, and about apportioning ownership, which the Government have said they will do in this Bill, to make sure that the marriage penalty, as it is known, will be done away with.

There is one other point about the distinction of where it is in perpetuity for non-qualifying leaseholders. It is very worrying. For the non-qualifying leaseholders we speak to, it is literally hanging over their necks for the rest of their lives. Even if the building gets remediated and even if it is assessed as safe, they are still treated as non-qualifying leaseholders. One element I forgot to mention is that there is a potential portfolio-size amendment that was tabled to the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Act that we hope the Department is looking at closely.

Again, all leaseholders should be protected. If there is not the will for that, which there really should be, we need to do more to make sure that the protections as they are protect more people. I could go into a lot more detail, but I do not know how much you want.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Third sitting)

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[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.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

On that basis, I am also a Member of the all-party parliamentary group.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I am sure I will have time to come back to you, but I just want to get the first batch of questions in.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q Good morning. Paula, you also said that ground rents have not been tackled by this Bill; could you elaborate? What changes would you like to see?

Ms Paula Higgins: I think that was a statement put out at the time of the King’s Speech, when it was not clear. It sounded like the Government were going to consult on the ground rents, which is what they are doing now; it closed yesterday and we welcome that. I think at that time I was concerned that the King’s Speech said the Government were going to consult on how to limit ground rents. At the moment, there is no justification to have a ground rent payment for nothing; any payments should be as part of the service charge.

I welcome the Bill, and I fully support the ground rent being a peppercorn, if you cannot have the legal challenge. If you cannot have it as a peppercorn, then having it as a set amount makes it clean and clear. What we want is that when people are doing lease extensions, there is a calculator so they do not need to get valuers and have lots of negotiation; there is a lot of cost in that. You want to make it a process that is as simple as possible for people to extend their lease and get rid of their ground rent.

[Mike Amesbury]

That is great. Bob and Sue, do you have anything to add to that?

Sue Phillips: I just want to flag that one of the distinctions between shared owners and leaseholders is that shared owners cannot eliminate a ground rent via statutory lease extension, and that is a huge problem. My understanding is that there may have previously been an expectation in Homes England guidance—although it was not mandated—that shared owners would not be subject to ground rent. There is massive inconsistency in the shared ownership sector on all kinds of aspects, but it includes the imposition of ground rent, the nature of that ground rent, and whether you encounter it at the point it is staircasing to 100%. Ultimately, the key point is that shared owners do not have that resort to lease extension to eliminate ground rent at present.

[Mike Amesbury]

Thank you.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. We have 10 minutes left. Mike Amesbury wants to come in, and then I will call Matt and Barry.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q This question is to both witnesses. Are you satisfied with the provisions in the Bill to regulate what is commonly known as the “fleecehold” phenomenon, where what leaseholders pay for communal areas—in the broadest sense—maintenance, service charges and administration charges is uncapped? Is it strong enough at the moment?

Professor Hodges: I do not really think that is a question I can answer, because it is a policy question within which economics and other factors are relevant. Technically, as a regulatory system, I do not see anything wrong with it.

[The Chair]

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

Professor Steven: I do not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Carter]

Q That leads me on to the regulation of managing agents and the property sector. Is that an area that your members have any views on? Is it something that you would welcome?

Paul Broadhead: Yes, we believe that managing agents should be regulated. We think the fees—where the service charges money is spent—should be made clear to the borrower. I think that, at the very minimum, short of regulation, they should be forced to be a member of an alternative dispute resolution scheme.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q That point is very interrelated to this. A considerable number of leaseholders are excluded from provisions to remediate the buildings. An example is people in buildings that are below 11 metres, or it might be people who have more than three flats. How has the market been responding to that?

Paul Broadhead: There have been well-documented issues about building safety post the Grenfell tragedy. We did see some real difficulty about people being able to get mortgages where there was cladding on the building. Progress has been made there. I think that now, in most cases—particularly above 11 metres, as you suggest—the market is open, because it is clear that there is recourse to either the developer or the Government scheme to fund the work. Our starting position, when this came out with the amended Government guidance note in 2020, was that no leaseholders should be responsible for making good the combustible cladding, if it was now inappropriate, because they have gone into this, they have been advised by their legal advisers, and they should not be forced to put their hand in their pocket.

We are not there yet on properties below 11 metres, because the Government have chosen to exclude them from the support scheme. I have had a number of meetings with consumer groups, looking at cladding and at leasehold, and I think we are on the same page here. We are trying to find a solution from a mortgage-lending perspective, because we want that market to open up, but what seems to be more and more frequently coming out is that the cladding issues and other building safety issues are being conflated. It is really difficult then from a mortgage lender’s perspective, because if the cladding itself does not need replacing because it is safe, but there are other defects in there, there may still be some comeback that leaves leaseholders with quite a large unexpected bill that is at the moment unquantified and would affect the affordability of that borrower, going forward. We continue to meet with these groups and with Government to seek a solution, but it certainly is not operating perfectly.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q Would you welcome amendments to the Bill to try to capture that by regulation, by legislation?

Paul Broadhead: Yes. Anything that makes it clearer and gives lenders confidence and consumers confidence that their building is safe and they are not going to face an unexpected bill has to be welcome.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

Q I am slightly confused. I thought it was now the case that properties did have to be advertised as leasehold or freehold. Has that changed?

Paul Broadhead: Well, often the advert will say that a property is leasehold but that that will be confirmed by the conveyancer, so you do not know 100% whether it is leasehold or what the terms of the lease are.

Draft Higher-Risk Buildings (Keeping and Provision of Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2023

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 General Committees

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg and to respond on behalf of the Opposition Front Bench team.

I am very familiar with the Building Safety Act. I was the shadow Housing Minister who took it through the Public Bill Committee and Report stage, and I tabled amendments to it. We worked constructively with former Ministers—and, indeed, the Secretary of State—to bring it on its journey.

We worked with key stakeholders in our constituencies and way beyond, including Cladiators campaigners, the National Leasehold Campaign, End Our Cladding Scandal, and the UK Cladding Action Group—all groups that the Minister is very familiar with. The Act is a landmark piece of legislation. It changes the regulatory regime and creates a professional culture in the construction and development industry, focused on high-rise buildings, the definition of which is in the legislation.

As the Minister rightly said, the context is the learning from the Grenfell Tower tragedy, where 72 people lost their lives, and earlier fires such as Lakanal House fire. It must be acknowledged that progress has been made. A new landscape of regulation has been created. The Building Safety Regulator is now alive, although not quite kicking; we certainly have a shared interest to get that going in the right direction. Practical remediation has started on a considerable number of buildings, but there is more to be done. Far too many buildings are still not remediated, and some developers are not doing what they should be doing. The Chair of this Committee is very familiar with that, and has spoken powerfully to challenge that in Runcorn in his constituency, as Members across the Committee have done in theirs. There are still issues around insurance and the broader financial sector—mortgages and so forth—that the Minister has been addressing.

Let me turn to the regulations. As the Minister said, they are about the golden thread of information, the principal accountable person and any other accountable person for what is classified as a high-risk building. It is vital that all leaseholders and residents are given a voice and empowered by this new regime, through that critical information—we have spoken about the previous learning. The Minister also referred to the emergency services and other key stakeholders in the building safety regime.

A concern that has been raised with me by the UK Cladding Action Group and some notable lawyers—the Minister will be familiar with some of them—is the cost of the cladding scandal potentially being passed on to leaseholders. There is reference to industry, but the Minister and Members across the House will know from experience that the magic, non-transparent money tree is tucked away in service charges. I would like the Minister to elaborate on that point.

Regulations 7 and 8 and schedule 2 require paper copies, potentially of three different documents, given to everyone over the age of 16. At large sites, that may involve giving multiple copies to multiple residents and, across hundreds of flats, that would be thousands of copies. The regulations state that those should be paper copies, so the cost of servicing that could be quite challenging. Again, there could be an opportunity for a managing agent, who may be the principal accountable person, to put that on to a service charge. We have seen some evidence of that from early regulations in the not-too-distant past, which I will happily present to the Minister.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be wholly unacceptable if the costs of additional paperwork that has to be filed were passed on to leaseholders in their service charges? They have already suffered enough. As we know only too well, 72 people lost their lives at Grenfell through no fault of their own. We have to do everything we can to protect these individuals.

[Mike Amesbury]

That principle has been debated at length. Various Government Ministers, including the Minister here today, have spoken about the fundamental principle that it should not be the innocent leaseholder who pays, but those who were responsible for this toxic mess in the first place. I would be interested to hear the Minister elaborate on that in his response.

It has been put to me that regulations 15 to 19 could be open to abuse. The only way to challenge service charges is to produce comparable evidence. As I have stated, most accountable persons will be managing agents, and they will grab every opportunity—we have lots of evidence of this—to give no details of their charges. There is another piece of legislation going through the House as we speak that might address some of those concerns. An example is the commercial confidentiality exemption in regulation 17, which managing agents could use to avoid being transparent and open about increasing—and at times, astronomical—costs. That could be an unintentional result of the regulation. I would like to hear the Minister’s assurance and elaboration on that point.

In summary, this is a technical and necessary statutory instrument, but the fundamental principle is that further costs should not be passed on to leaseholders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I thank Members for all the very constructive comments and questions. Let me try to answer them in turn. The hon. Members for Weaver Vale, for Hackney South and Shoreditch, and for Liverpool, Wavertree, raised important points about cost. It is absolutely right that we need the greatest transparency, and the minimum impact on residents. The approach will be imperfect whenever any system has so many actors within it. If the Government and the Building Safety Regulator make the approach very clear, and have processes that check these things, that is probably as much as we can do right now, but there is obviously more that should be done.

We have a combination of clarity around the issue, the Building Safety Regulator’s focus on it, and the Government’s clear statements about it, as well as a review and loop mechanism—plus there is all the work on the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill. Many Members here contributed to Second Reading on Monday. The Bill seeks to create transparency about service charges in general, irrespective of whether the building is a high-rise. We hope that all those things will form a package. The best way to keep costs down is to ensure that the system has transparency at its core, and that people have the ability to check and challenge in a practical way.

Secondly, on the distribution of costs, I acknowledge the point the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree made about the importance of minimising the impact on leaseholders. That is vital. Leaseholders have faced substantial challenges over the past six years, particularly those in buildings affected by cladding, those who are going through remediation and those who are still waiting for remediation. We have to try to minimise the costs. At the same time, I cannot exempt from costs unless we can find a specific fund at a time when the Government are still overspending by £130 billion—that is for a separate discussion at another time, however.

There will be an add-on in terms of cost; the job is to reduce it to the minimum and provide transparency, and then to do the work the hon. Member for Weaver Vale kindly referred to on the other costs residents are facing—increased insurance premiums, probable costs of commissions on top of insurance, and so on—and try to drive those costs down. A huge amount of work is being done to drive down the costs of insurance, which I have to say is very frustrating on a personal level. We have made some progress on commissions; on insurance, we have not made the progress I wanted, but we are working very closely with the insurance industry to do that and I hope to have more information soon. While the distribution of costs is probably not where Opposition Members want it to be, I hope I can reassure them that we are working across the piece to drive down costs in aggregate.

Thirdly, how will the appeals work? There will be an appeals process that allows reference to an independent panel through the Building Safety Regulator; if that is not satisfactory, cases can go to the first-tier tribunal for a decision. Having met with many leaseholders while dealing with the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill over the last couple of weeks, I recognise that tribunals are not an end in themselves. The processes are long, involved and complicated, and people have lives to lead, but ultimately we have to find the form of redress that works, and I hope to achieve that by providing greater transparency and easier processes through that Bill, and more information where it is necessary.

If the package does not work, I want to hear from colleagues about such examples. I meet the Building Safety Regulator—the chair, the chief executive and everyone involved—monthly to discuss issues of mutual interest. I have already said to them that getting these costs down and getting the guidance around this to a place where it is reasonable and proportionate are hugely important. I know we will have examples where management companies try it on or there is no transparency; there will be cases where things are not as we want them to be. We need to identify the problems, work through them and see whether we can make changes to make the process better.

[Mike Amesbury]

The Minister talks about the Building Safety Regulator, but we are talking about some 12,000 that are in scope. Is he confident that the regulator and associated teams have enough resources to meet these quite ambitious timescales? We are all keen to move things on collectively, but can he give us some assurance?

[Lee Rowley]

I work closely with the Building Safety Regulator. Its first job is to make sure that the rough number of buildings we are expecting to register have done so. For the past couple of months I have received data weekly, and slightly less frequently before that. The numbers are in the ballpark of how many we expected to register, so the first test has been passed. Now, it is a case of, over six years, working through the buildings, making sure that data is collected and used in a satisfactory way, and helping owners to make sure they are managing in a way that works. A substantial sum is going into the Building Safety Regulator, and from having worked closely with it, I think the indications so far—things may change—are that it is moving in the right direction.

To pick up a couple of other points, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch highlighted the very important point about disabilities and making sure that appropriate consideration is given to that issue. That is vital and it is a core part of our approach, but it is separate from the regulations before us, which are about a record of buildings, not of people who live in them. We have already consulted and we will bring forward separate measures on PEEPs—personal emergency evacuation plans.