Leaseholders and Managing Agents

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has managed to get those condemnations on the record. I am sure that his constituents will be most grateful, as I am, for his doing so. He is right. The trouble is that the law is there: it is the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which makes it clear that unreasonable charges should not be levied, and that services and works have to be done to “a reasonable standard”. It is all there in statute; the trouble is that it is not enforced and that the mechanism for enforcement has gone awry, as I will come on to.

I already paid tribute to the Father of the House, whose long-standing campaign on this issue is an inspiration to us all. He co-chairs the all-party parliamentary group with my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who has also done so much on this issue. Not with us at the moment is my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, who has done a huge amount over the years.

It is about not just those in this House; outside of the House there are many more. I pay special tribute to Charlotte Martin, who founded, with Nigel Wilkins, who is sadly no longer with us, the campaign against residential leaseholds, and who did so much, with Neil Mulcock, to usher in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

While the hon. Gentleman has a glass of water, I want to ask whether he agrees with the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) made about Railpen and the terrible impact it is having on leaseholders’ mental health up and down the country, including in the constituency of Stevenage. There have also been issues with the building that started the original campaign, as highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith).

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He highlights something that is really important to us all: the mental health problems that this issue causes. It is not just a financial issue; it has both physical and mental health implications.

There was one more person to whom I was going to pay tribute. If I left her out, I would be in deep trouble, because it is my own head of office, Jackie George, who keeps a database of more than 7,000 leaseholders in my constituency and who keeps in touch with them regularly.

In 2017, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), committed the Government to act on leasehold abuses. Specifically, he committed them to legislate to prohibit the creation of new residential long leases on newly built or existing freehold houses, other than in exceptional circumstances; to restrict ground rents in newly established leases of houses and flats to a peppercorn; to address loopholes in order to improve transparency and fairness for leaseholders and freeholders; and to work with the Law Commission to support existing leaseholders. The Government said that would include making buying a freehold or extending a lease

“easier, faster, fairer and cheaper”.

In April 2018, the Government announced that managing agents in the sector would be subject to regulation by an independent body and that a code of practice would set out minimum standards for key areas of activity, including service charges. In October 2019, the then Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), confirmed in a written statement the Government’s intention to take forward those measures. In 2020, the Law Commission published its report and recommendations.

It is not good enough to say that the Government have been busy with other priorities. Since 2017, we have had seven Secretaries of State and nine Housing Ministers, yet leaseholders are still being ripped off.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) for securing it.

We have spoken about leaseholders in this House for a number of years now, and one of the things that I always try to get across is that leaseholders are mentally, physically and financially broken. We talk about stuff in these debates, but they have lived it. I remember that during covid, when everybody was being told to stay at home, these leaseholders were being told to stay at home—and to keep their children at home—in buildings, flats and apartments that they had been told were unsafe and could burn down at any moment. When everybody else was being told to stay home in order to stay safe, they were being told that the safest thing for them to do was to get out. These people have been completely through the mill.

We have secured huge concessions from the Government, with over £10 billion in the Building Safety Act 2022. We have been back and forth, and I am delighted that the campaign led by many people in the Chamber, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), was successful in persuading the current Secretary of State to work with us to help to support these leaseholders. But what frustrates me is that, some years on, there are tenants still trapped in buildings such as Vista Tower in Stevenage, where the freeholder is Railpen. We know what is wrong with the building, and the Government have the money there to help to fix it. Why has it not been fixed? What is the delay? The building is there, and we know that—allegedly—it needs these works for it to be safe. The freeholder and the management agents need to work with the tenants to get the work done, but there are just delays. Leaseholders up and down the country are still trapped.

There is this weird combination of management agents, freeholders and leaseholders. We are talking about leasehold reform. My understanding was that, under the Building Safety Act, the freeholder was the backstop if nobody else was going to be responsible. If we are going to abolish freehold, we cannot be in a position whereby freeholders and management agents can just wait out all the current leaseholders, so that they then become responsible for all these bills in the future. We need to ensure, when we talk about leasehold reform, that leaseholders are at the heart of it. Leasehold reform should be for leaseholders, not to try to tidy up some property laws, or for freeholders, management agents or vested interests.

I would love to meet the Minister and officials to talk about how we can get the buildings that are out there at the moment made safe, so that leaseholders can all feel as though the jobs are being done.