The House will be grateful to know that the official Opposition support what the Government are trying to do. I pay tribute, as the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did, to the people in the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform—Liberals, Labour, Conservatives and others—who, over the last 11 years, have worked together to try to get to a situation where it is not possible for freeholders, on purpose or by mistake, to exploit residential leaseholders.
When I first spoke on this issue about 11 years ago, I declared my interest as a leaseholder in my constituency with no problems whatsoever. Six of us bought the freehold willingly from a willing seller—the person who developed the block of flats—when he retired. I have since acquired an interest in another leasehold property. I do not take part in these debates to try to feather my own nest; I am trying to ensure that the 5 million people who are in a worse position have as good an experience as I have had.
It is 10 years since I first started quoting Leasehold Knowledge Partnership. In addition to Sebastian O’Kelly and Martin Boyd, whom the Secretary of State referred to as well as the campaigners in the National Leasehold Campaign, I would like to name one or two journalists who have helped—in particular, the people at “Newsnight”—and the people who have batted away at the issue. Major media organisations ought to have a housing correspondent or editor rather than putting it with home affairs. We cannot expect Mark Easton at the BBC, when he covers the Home Office, to be able to become expert in residential leasehold in the way that is needed.
I hope that in Committee, and especially in the House of Lords, the parts of the Law Commission’s recommendations that have not been incorporated in the Bill will be put forward for decision by the House and the other place. The three reports that it produced in 2020 should be implemented in full, or else, when those reports came out the Government should have said what was wrong with the proposals.
May I emphasise what the Secretary of State said about the ongoing consultation and continuing conversation on modern leasehold—the ground rent issue—where the period of consultation has been extended from,
I think, late-December to the middle of January? People will be grateful for that. There are five options. As Dean Buckner, a trustee of LKP, the campaigning charity, has said, those who own freehold interests have known since Scotland abolished leasehold that the gravy train was going to end. When the Government came forward with the proposal that ground rent should not be more than 0.1% of the capital value, they knew that their value was not as high as some were estimating, and when people start looking at the discount rate—I think in the impact assessment it is about 3.5%; in fact, long-term debt for the Government is now at 4.5%—they see that that again will reduce it. I make the suggestion, which is also on the LKP website, that the Government can deal with any possible compensation by saying that they will tax it at 45% or higher, which will make attempts by people to take it to judicial review or challenges to the Government on human rights terms null and void, or at least not worth trying.
May I say to the Government that after the Grenfell fire tragedy, while it became clear that up to £15 billion of remediation was needed not just for cladding but for other fire defects and that the only people who could eventually pay those costs by law would be the leaseholders who own not a brick in the building, the people who ought to be paying are the insurers for those who were responsible—the designers, the architects, the builders, the developers, the subcontractors, the component manufacturers and the like; they were all insured? I commend to the House that, in Committee, it should somehow be written into the Bill that potential claims by leaseholders be gathered together in an agency, which could sue the insurance companies and those they insured to get a contribution from them. That would reduce the costs both to leaseholders and to the Government, who have been providing a lot of money to try to ensure that remediation has happened.
I pay tribute to successive Secretaries of State, who have had to give written instructions to their permanent secretaries for some of the compensation for fire defect costs, and I say to the Government that the artificial distinction of 11 metres is unjustified. Actually, fire death certificates show that more people die in fires in lower buildings, and higher buildings are not riskier. We ought to try to recognise the realities. It is also worth saying in passing that when Dame Judith Hackitt produced her report and recommendations, I do not think she was well briefed on the law on leasehold, which is why some of her recommendations were not properly appropriate. I am glad that since Gavin Barwell we have had a succession of Ministers who have put the Government on the side of leaseholders; we now know that there are 5 million to 6 million of them.