I beg to move,
That this House notes the commitment by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in January 2023 to abolish the feudal leasehold system which he has acknowledged is an unfair form of property ownership; calls on him to keep his promise to the millions of people living in leasehold properties by ending the sale of new private leasehold houses, introducing a workable system to replace private leasehold flats with commonhold and enacting the Law Commission’s recommendations on enfranchisement, commonhold and the right to manage in full; and further calls on the Secretary of State to make an oral statement to this House by 23 June 2023 on his plans to reform leasehold.
It is always nice to see the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) in his place, but there was a time when the Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) could not resist a housing debate. His appearances in this Chamber are fast becoming rarer than the sight of a Tory councillor in the north of England. I worry that he may be in danger of becoming extinct.
Nothing, as the Minister knows and we know, matters more than a home. Security in your own home, the right to make it your own and the right to live somewhere fit for human habitation are non-negotiable. Housing may be a market, but it is not just a market—it is a fundamental human right. But for so many people in our country, what they thought would be the reward of years of hard work and the realisation of their dreams of home ownership are shattered by the reality of what it means to be a leaseholder.