Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Richard Fuller and Mike Amesbury

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Mike Amesbury]

Keep going.

Karolina Zoltaniecka: I would not give up on it; it is well worth waiting for.

Harry Scoffin: We need share of freehold in the meantime, at least.

[Richard Fuller]

Q Part 4 of the Bill is called “Regulation of estate management”, which I think is a particular area of interest for you. You said that it all starts at the beginning, when councils and developers decide to do that. Do you think that getting control of that is an essential part of the effective regulation of estate management?

Halima Ali: I do not agree that it is. All it is doing is creating a two-tier system where a set of homeowners, like myself, living on a private estate are dealing with this situation, whereas other homeowners are not. I do not see how regulating it is helping, because overall, the management company still get to set the fee.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Richard Fuller and Mike Amesbury

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Q Hello Martin, good to see you. Are there any risks in banning new leasehold houses but not flats?

Mr Martin Boyd: Yes, there are risks. Currently, we do not have a viable commonhold system. Even if the Government were to come forward with the full Law Commission proposals, those had not reached the point where they created all the systems necessary to allow the conversion of leasehold flats to commonhold flats. I see no technical reason at the moment why we should not move quite quickly to commonhold on new build for extant stock. I think it will take longer—and, at the end of the day, conversion will be a consequence of consumer demand. People would want to do it. On my side, I would not want us to convert to commonhold, because I could not yet be sure that it would help to add to the value of the properties. It would make our management of the site a lot easier, but I could not guarantee to anyone living there that it would add to the value of their property—and that is what people want to know, before they convert.

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

Q Mr Boyd, I want to pick up something you said in answer to the shadow Minster, when you were talking about the treatment of property managers or managing agents in the private sector. You enumerated a list of three options: a code of conduct, which you said existed in the social sector; legislation or regulation; and also qualification, which I took to be professional qualification. Which of those three is the preferred path, in your view?

Mr Martin Boyd: I do not think the Leasehold Advisory Service would have a specific preferred path. At least two of those are important. I will add a fourth, actually. It is illogical that we do not have a requirement for professional qualifications for those managing particularly complex buildings.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Amesbury]

Q I have two brief questions. Are there any risks in terms of banning new leasehold houses but not flats? Why do you think this country is an outlier in the world and is so wedded still to this day to the feudal system of leasehold?

Katie Kendrick: You cannot just ban leasehold houses and not flats—70% of leaseholders live in flats, so you are not tackling the problem. You are cherry-picking the easy things, and banning leasehold houses is easy. It is more tricky with flats, but that does not mean it is not achievable. As you have said, it has been achieved everywhere else in the world. We do not need to continue to mask that leasehold system. It is deeply flawed and it ultimately needs to be abolished.

We do understand that there is no magic wand and this is not going to happen tomorrow, but there have been a lot of campaigners, well before us, who have highlighted the issues of leasehold, and yet here we are, still, again, trying to make it a little bit fairer. It does not need to be a little bit fairer—it needs to go. That needs to be the ultimate aim. Everybody needs to work on this. There is something better out there, despite what the other lobbying groups will tell you.

[Richard Fuller]

Q This is a question I will ask a number of witnesses. We do an impact assessment for legislative change to all Bills, sometimes done well and sometimes less so. This has an assessment of the total cost of the Bill, with the best estimate being £2.9 billion. That is quite large for a Bill. A large part of that—about two thirds—is a transfer of the value from freeholders to leaseholders. That is at £1.8 billion, or £1.9 billion. What are your thoughts about that transfer of wealth?

Jo Derbyshire: It is long overdue; bring it on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller]

Q The other part is that bringing a lot of this together will mean that the first-tier tribunal has a lot more work. Do you think that people may want to get justice, but that it will be denied because the first-tier tribunal is going to be overwhelmed?

Amanda Gourlay: I would not anticipate that the first-tier tribunal would be overwhelmed. At the moment, I find that my hearings go through within a reasonable period of time. That is the best I can say.

[Mike Amesbury]

Q Would commonhold being the default position make your job less complex?

Amanda Gourlay: In the first few years, it would make it more complex, because I would have to learn about it. I have read the Law Commission’s report, and any new scheme is going to involve some bedding down. From what I read and hear about commonhold, it should make matters less litigious. That is what I hear. I have no experience of commonhold directly, however.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Fuller and Mike Amesbury

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller]

The right hon. Lady is right about the importance of this issue. The United Kingdom absolutely wishes to move forward, and we would hope that the European Union would move forward apace with us to reach an agreement.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

9. What estimate he has made of the revenue that will be raised by the loan charge.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Richard Fuller)]

The loan charge was announced in the 2016 Budget as part of a package of measures to tackle disguised remuneration tax avoidance. In the 2022 spring statement, it was estimated that the package would produce an overall Exchequer yield of £3.4 billion. The changes resulting from the 2019 independent review of the loan charge have reduced the Exchequer yield by an estimated £620 million.

[Mike Amesbury]

Too many ordinary people are facing huge bills, untold distress and, in some cases, personal harm and indeed suicide because of the loan charge scandal. Can the Minister and the Government now commit themselves to finally commissioning a truly independent review to deal with this mess?