My Lords, I wish to speak on this because I feel that the statements that are being put forward are not necessarily as good as they sound. My interest in property is in the register, but I state again that I have a personal interest. However, my interest is much wider than that; it is also about other people. I have asked the noble Lord, Lord McNally, Questions on the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal in particular. He replied by letter and it was very interesting. I was concerned because at the moment the applicant cannot be asked to pay more than £500. Under the new proposals, the amount will vary from £65 to considerably more—over £500—but no one quite knows where they will come in that scale. If there is a hearing, you might be asked to pay another £190 for it. That is the minutiae of the answer, which I think is worth putting on record. Over the years, the amount has never varied. Although when we established the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal in 1996, we had hoped that the amount would never vary, we cannot expect prices to remain static for ever. That is an incidental point.
I am concerned about the whole structure of the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal going into the Property Chamber. I was particularly concerned when I read the Explanatory Memorandum supplied with the order. At paragraph 3.1 it refers to Paragraph 22 of Schedule 1 to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 which,
“alters the type of power used for prescribing one particular fee … and inserts a negative resolution procedure”.
That is considerably weaker than the affirmative procedure but, nevertheless, I am just pointing out that that is what is proposed.
I am more concerned by paragraph 3.3 of the document, which states:
“The Upper Tribunal already hears unlimited onward appeals from residential property tribunals”.
That was always envisaged. It was always envisaged that the first stage would be within the means of ordinary people. There is a separate argument here which I shall bring up on the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, on which I propose to table amendments on a number of issues. I am sorry to say that on some issues I have been told that the difficulty is to get the Ministry of Justice to co-operate sufficiently to get important changes through on housing issues. That is not good enough. I draw that to the Minister’s attention.
Those amendments will be coming up at Third Reading on 20 March, and I hope that the Ministry of Justice will have looked at things a bit thoroughly by that time and got things going because it is important to realise that this is a very dramatic change.
The suggestion in the Explanatory Notes that they will all be expert people is quite frightening because a separate matter in the housing issue that we have been talking about is that the management, who are not supposed to be putting up big legal people in round one, which was for the ordinary person to bring their case, are now bringing in very expensive legal people and, what is worse, the cost of that, win or lose, is charged back to the people who brought the application for £500 because it is claimed to be a legitimate management expense to provide the most expensive lawyers. Going back to 1996, when this Act went through, it was always acknowledged that when it came to the upper-level tribunal major experts and huge fees would be involved and everyone realised that at that point the large property owner or the person or company who had multimillions of pounds would be at a huge advantage because they could afford to employ such people, but the lower level was always meant to help the ordinary person and give them a fair go. I am concerned about whether that is going to continue. I am being quite tough about this because it is not often that I get the opportunity to have this word in the ear of the people who come from the Ministry of Justice, whereas poor old housing suffers from me all the time.
Then we get to the residential property tribunals and the three that will be changed over. I have no views on the agricultural side because I know nothing about that and I would not attempt to mention it. However, the leasehold valuations, the rent tribunals and the rent assessment committees are all property issues. Another major issue with property, which again is a justice situation, is why do we not have one decent housing Act? Is it not time to consolidate housing? When I tabled a Question on this issue, I was told by the former Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord Mackay, exactly what wording to put in so that the justice department would answer it. Instead, it was answered by the communities department again. The Ministry of Justice did not answer it at all. I thought that was rather a tragedy because the noble and learned Lord had told me that with that wording it could not be replied to by anyone other than the Ministry of Justice. There is something wrong with the system if things are not getting through. It could be that we are not getting any response because the justice department is not even aware of what we are asking.
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It is worrying that there is an attempt to make everything 100% uniform in all these tribunals. It may work; it may be splendid, but it may not. The Explanatory Memorandum says that it will be assessed further. Paragraph 12.1 states:
“The impact of these Orders and other Orders that transfer tribunals will be monitored and reviewed as part of the annual report of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service … which measures performances against key indicators”.
When will we know about the key indicators? I should like an answer on that. How often will we see these reports and will they single out the different tribunals, instead of lumping them all together in one answer?
The difficulties all date back to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which has been replaced or added to by primary legislation again and again. This has happened so often when what we really need is a decent, consolidated housing Act. The Government would be making a move that would have a good effect. At the moment, people who want to take a case to the leasehold tribunal have to consult Act after Act to see where they are. Even people who work full time as solicitors or legal experts in the property world find it difficult to see which Act has corrected which previous Act, and all the changes.
I sat as a member of the industrial tribunal when Ted Heath first introduced it—I think it was in about 1970. At that time, the trade unions were unwilling to join in. When it started, it was informal; people were just appointed. As a dentist, I was appointed: I would never have been appointed in employment law, but they were so short of people that they appointed a number of dentists. When, a few years later, the unions decided that they would join in and that the system was good in principle and was reformed, you either had to be appointed by the CBI or a trade union. To my surprise, the CBI appointed me because it was pretty short of women, but none of the male dentists were renewed; they were all out. I was fortunate to carry on and I served on it until 1997. I cannot be absolutely sure of the date but I had reached an age when I had to stop, which is why I gave up. It was extremely valuable to sit on a tribunal and see the difference between how a tribunal works as opposed to a court.
This is what concerns me. We do not want this Property Chamber. I am concerned when it is said that it will be of benefit to everyone because it will have the same procedures, and everything. It all sounds to me as if a great legal wealth will build up on this procedure again, because it will all take on a much more serious legal role than it has at the moment. At the moment, people are suffering from it, but at least they are having a go.
I have given noble Lords more than enough of my comments, but I mention in passing that I have an amendment for next week, which brings up something about housing in general. At the moment, this issue has to go to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, but it need not go there at all if my amendment is accepted. It is a very simple amendment. There has just been a court decision in which the judge ruled that for any expenditure over £250 per flat in a year there will have to be a consultation with all tenants, all the time. This means that if you were going to spend an extra £1 per flat over that amount, you would have to go to consultation. Everyone is concerned that this will add huge costs for the managing agents and all the tenants in all these places. It will really not be a good thing at all. In terms of justice, something could be done about that.
I have an amendment, although it has not been tabled yet because we are only at the final stage of
Report. It will cover the point if there are certain categories such as fire emergency, some other genuine emergency, or the security to your front door. Say that you are just over the £250 and suddenly some baddie comes along and breaks your front door lock, the whole block is vulnerable because people could come in and attack the place. Yet you would have to go to the tribunal, with all the time and costs that that would take, to be able to get permission to do it. I understand that there is an alternative system whereby you can go ahead and do it and then apply for a dispensation subsequently. However, if you have to do that, you still have to go through the tribunal to apply for the dispensation. Then they will whitewash you, or I do not know what happens if they do not.
I have said more than enough on this matter, but I wanted to place it on record. This is a marvellous opportunity while there is such a wonderful team of people here from the Ministry of Justice. I am hoping that they may have listened at least to something that I have said and agreed perhaps with one or two words. I will not say anything more, but I will wait to see the reports after these measures come into action. I hope that the results will be good.