Peter Bottomley
Main Page: Peter Bottomley (Conservative - Worthing West)
Mr Betts
We feel it is necessary not simply that we have a number of individual recommendations, but that the Government now call on, invite and fund the Law Commission to conduct a more comprehensive review of leasehold legislation as a whole. We have made many other recommendations that I do not have time to go into today, but we look forward to the Government response to our report. Given the weight of evidence we have had from so many individual people—our constituents—up and down the country, we urge Ministers to take our recommendations seriously.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
May I say that I own a leasehold flat? In a few years’ time, I may own another one, but I have not had any problems.
The Chair of the Select Committee, and his colleagues and advisers, deserve enormous thanks and congratulations. In just three months, they had the innovation of the roundtable—I recommend the conclusion of that roundtable to the BBC, and others, who do not yet seem to have covered the detail of the report.
The hon. Gentleman picked up on issues raised by the National Leasehold Campaign, as well as the knowledge of Bob Bessell, a trustee of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, who has developed more than 1,500 retirement properties with no ground rents. He knows, as do we, that ground rents pay for nothing that is of benefit to those in their homes.
The report’s suggestion of lease-rental is good. Leaseholders should not think that they actually own anything, because they do not. They are effectively tenants, and as we saw with the Grenfell-style cladding, they were supposedly left carrying the cost of replacing that cladding, which is not good enough.
On behalf of the all-party group on leasehold and commonhold reform, I welcome the campaign to ensure that costs are made equal and that freeholders are not able to put the costs of unsuccessful legal actions on to leaseholders, who then have to pay even though they won a dispute.
It is important that all recommendations in the report are debated in full, and if we have more such reports, the work of those who have campaigned on this issue, particularly the hon. Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick)—he is currently in a meeting about leaseholders, but otherwise he would have spoken today—will be carried through to the benefit of leaseholders.
Mr Betts
The point about the costs of legal action not being recoverable from leaseholders is made in our report, and I welcome the idea of a longer debate on that issue—perhaps once the Government have published their response, so that we can take that into account. We ought to pursue the idea of lease-rental more clearly, because people do not wholly own their properties in the way they think they do.
Mr Betts
We made it clear right at the beginning of our report that there should be a clear explanation from the seller of what extra charges there might be for the future maintenance of areas of open space that have not been taken over by the council. If they are to be managed by a private company, its service charge should be open and transparent, but all that information should also be provided right at the beginning. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that this is a scandal. I referred to 700 pieces of written evidence, but every day we are continuing to get leaseholders writing to us, having seen our evidence sessions on the television or read about them on the website, saying, “Me too; we have been badly treated and we want something done about it.”
Sir Peter Bottomley
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I first say that the House greatly welcomes the way the Chair has run this Select Committee statement, because all the Members who could be here today have managed to get in?
There are many other Members representing the 10 million people living in the 5 million homes affected by leasehold, so perhaps the Government would consider making an oral statement next Monday or Tuesday so that others can contribute.
The Government might wish to talk about how they will continue to fund the Law Commission’s work and the extension recommended by the Committee.
None of this would have happened without the work of Sebastian O’Kelly and Martin Boyd of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, so I think that we ought to pay our debt to those outside this House as well as congratulating ourselves inside it.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Obviously, as the hon. Gentleman knows, that is not a point of order for the Chair, but he has certainly put his comments on the record and thanks have gone to the rightful place, because I do not think there is a constituency in the country that is not affected.