I am grateful to you for chairing the debate, Mr Bone. We all thank the Minister, not only because he has responded to many of the points made today, but because he has been one of the people responsible for carrying forward the work and initiative of his predecessor, Gavin Barwell. When Gavin Barwell spoke at the LEASE conference a year ago, he shocked people by telling the truth: LEASE should be there for leaseholders and nobody else; that we should be unequivocally on the side of the ordinary person; and that those looking for good, fast-buck investments in the leasehold field better start thinking of something different.
On the Minister’s point about the National Trust, although it may have an exemption, as our right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) has said, why should it choose to use it? Is that right, fair or necessary? The same applies to charities in the north-east, too.
The debate was essentially about two points, and one was whether we can get commonhold to work. I have in my hand a paper from the 11 September meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform by Philip Rainey QC, who talks about the necessary reforms needed to launch a commonhold mark 2. He talks of how to level the playing field by eliminating the comparative benefits of long leasehold and how the playing field can be tilted towards commonhold. He suggests some very simple incentives—one of which might be a change to the stamp duty land tax on development land, which would give a simple signal and would probably get people moving quite fast.
He also says there should be some kind of compulsion or sunset clause, some way of dealing with conversion and then a relaunch. I will not go into the rest of his paper, but it is available to the Department and it should be taken forward. Again, perhaps a roundtable on that, with experts brought in, would be useful.
A lot of professionals are involved in the leasehold field, and the regulatory system has failed. I apologise if I confused the wrongs of Dudley Joiner with the wrongs of Benjamin Mire in a previous debate, but Benjamin Mire was in the trade and held judicial office in the property tribunal. He was investigated by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, which was about to throw
him out of that office, but he resigned just before it could. He had clearly committed an offence under the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors’ terms, yet clever lawyers, who delayed the case beyond the time limits, allowed him to get away scot-free.
Dudley Joiner, with this Right to Manage Federation, has, through various degrees of insolvency and poor advice to a number of leaseholders, managed to get leaseholders to lose lots of money. He is the sort of person who could resign from one of the regulatory bodies—it is not compulsory to be in them—and apply to join another. The same thing applied when the Tchenguiz interest owned Peverel, which was involved in several of the biggest leasehold scandals over the past 20 years. Peverel and its subsidiary, Cirrus, abused their position in blocks of leasehold flats, but they could actually apply not to be struck off by the Association of Retirement Housing Managers.
The same applies to Sally Keeble, who was formerly a Member of Parliament, and who resigned as regulator of the Association of Residential Managing Agents and gave five good reasons why voluntary regulation was not working—some were to do with clients’ funds and others to do with the powers that people should be carrying forward. We then come to the person we were told was appointed under the terms of the Nolan principles, Roger Southam, the present chairman of LEASE. I can send to the Minister privately the list of points, which I am sure his Department has already, of how Roger Southam used to advertise how he could help to get more money out of leaseholders. How can that sort of person, under the Nolan principles, be appointed to chair LEASE?
When people were appointing other members of LEASE, did they consult explicitly with the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and its trustees—people who would not actually want to run LEASE themselves, although they provide equivalent services in some ways—on who they think would be a suitable appointment? It seems to me that one always needs to ask people in the field what their views are. That is only consultation, not necessarily giving them the power of decision, although some of the things they knew should certainly have been used as a veto against those making the appointments.
I could go further, but before we come to the end of the debate and the year let me list some points. We have heard a whole series of examples of leasehold abuses. On leasehold enfranchisement and the extension of leases, which brings us to the James Wyatt point through Parthenia and the issue of hedonic regression, I think
the Government really have to get involved in that case. We should not let it be possible for the law to be set by judges, just because expensive barristers are clashing heads like a couple of bulls pushing against each other. We should actually ask what the public purpose, the public policy and the public interest of the law is and get directly involved.
I referred to commonhold and the ground rent issue, and we can certainly learn from the ground rent redemption issue in Northern Ireland, which I hope Ministers have looked at; from today’s announcement, it looks as though they have. I would spend more time on park homes if I could. However, it is worth mentioning, in case the Devon and Cornwall police is watching. Has it yet managed to find the 40-foot-long trailer stolen from Sonia McColl’s yard? She took up the issue of park home residents and, like Tony Turner, with his residents’ alliance, has been subject to incredible abuse. Of course, the biggest abuse is to have one’s home stolen, and hers has been.
I spoke about the regulation of managing agents. We have not fully dealt with the right to manage, but essentially, if any group of leaseholders asks for the right to manage, the presumption should be that they get it. They should not have to go through legal hoops and try to find every other leasehold owner to try to get permission. The presumption should be that, if they ask for it, they should have it. I am glad that the Law Commission programme has been referred to. Cladding has been covered by the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse.
This debate is only a stepping stone, but it is an important one. The people who deserve the credit are our constituents who raise the issues with us. We are only here to be the functionaries. We should be the people who turn their cases of injustice into a system in which it does not happen to more people in the future, and in which those who are already stuck in these terrible conditions have the chance of an easier life. Someone who has a home—whether a park home, a leasehold home or a freehold home, or if they are a tenant —deserves a fair life and to not spend time worrying about their money or their lives. I finish by wishing everyone a merry Christmas.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered leasehold and commonhold reform and leasehold abuses.
5.29 pm
Sitting adjourned.