I am delighted to speak on this flagship piece of legislation, which will restore true home ownership to millions, end rip-off charges and introduce fairness to the leasehold market. I am confident that it is a good piece of legislation not because I did all the preparatory work on it, but because I worked with brilliant officials, whom I thank.
We heard the testimony of so many thousands of leaseholders who struggled with blighted properties that led to blighted lives. There are too many of them to mention individually, but the strength and tenacity of the campaigners—and the organisations, such as the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and the Leasehold Advisory Service, under the leadership of the superb Martin Boyd, which helped them—is enormously impressive. Take, for example, Liam Spender, who was able to show that leaseholders in his block had paid £1.6 million in excess service charges to their freeholder, FirstPort. Incidentally, FirstPort is one of the worst offenders I heard about in my time as Minister. Yet freeholders still had the audacity to sit in front of me while I was a Minister and claim that
“some people like the security of paying service charges”
and that there is no evidence that they oppose ground rents. Yes, truly, that is what they said. Shockingly, I understand that Mr Spender and his tenants have received nothing yet, and now the freeholders are appealing the decision with the leaseholders’ own money. I would like the Minister to set out clearly how the Bill will tackle their situation and end that scandal once and for all.
We got here because of the greed and unethical behaviour of predatory freeholders who have treated leasehold properties as a cash cow and the leaseholders as a milking machine to produce an endless stream of income for no work at all. It is the ultimate definition of rent-seeking behaviour. In its worst excesses, it is frankly disgusting. I and many others find it appalling.