My Lords, I declare my interest as a leaseholder in a block of flats near here that has some remedial work not currently covered by the latest government proposals. I rise to move Amendment 46. In the customary spirit of this Committee, let us begin with my favourite building quote, which I learned in school and then used inappropriately all the time, as one does. Horace boasted that his Odes would be remembered like this; I commend the quote to my noble friend the Minister, since this is how this Bill will be remembered if he accepts the amendments of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and my humble self. Horace wrote:
“exegi monumentum aere perennius
regalique situ pyramidum altius,
quod non imber edax, non Aquilo inpotens
possit diruere”,
or
“I have built a monument more lasting than bronze,
higher than the Pyramids’ regal structures,
that no consuming rain, nor wild north wind
can destroy”.
That is the legacy my noble friend can have with this Bill, if he does the right thing. Let us crack on with proper work now.
Amendments 46 to 55 relate to Clauses 93 to 99. Of course, we have the excellent proposed new clause set out in Amendment 50A, which was tabled by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and which has also been signed by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and me. I look forward to hearing their speeches on it and will not trespass there except to say that the right reverend Prelate’s amendment may be a lot better than mine. I was moved to table my amendments in this group because, when I read Clauses 93 to 99, I was struck by how weighted against leaseholders they were. Since then, we have had the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, which seem to come from the same assumption that the odds are stacked against residents. I look forward to hearing what she has to say on this as well.
In Clause 97, there seems to be an assumption that leaseholders are going to smash up and remove safety equipment from our buildings. Why in the name of God would we do that? Where has this crazy notion come from? We all paid good money for our properties. We bought them and it is in our vested interest to maintain and add value to them. Why on earth would we, in a million years, want to diminish that? It just does not make sense. Perhaps at Report noble Lords might be tempted to move that these clauses do not stand part of the Bill. Under them, we can be served contravention notices, access to our flats can be demanded and the accountable person can be given rights to take us to court, yet there is not a single balancing right for leaseholders to take action against the accountable person, who is more likely to be at fault, if our experience of managing agents is anything to go by.
Amendment 46 says that the accountable person can draw up the strategy “after consulting the residents”. Do we not believe in prior consultation before foisting a strategy on the people who have to comply with it? If a Minister did this, he would be up for judicial review for not doing proper consultation first. Amendment 46A says that, where there is a residents association, the accountable person must draw up the strategy in
conjunction with its members and it must be agreed by them. Quite simply, they have the right to be involved and their buy-in is essential if the leaseholders are to happily sign up to the strategy.
Getting that buy-in is vital because we all know that the accountable person, who is likely to be the managing agent, will gold-plate every aspect of this strategy to increase the value of the landlord’s holdings. This morning, just for fun, I checked the price of a 6-kilogram standard dry powder fire extinguisher—a simple bit of safety equipment we would all expect to see. The most expensive came in at £171.75, while the cheapest was £31. They had exactly the same contents, were the same weight, had the same ingredients and would have the same firefighting ability, but we all know which one the landlord, freeholder and managing agent would buy and charge us for the privilege. It would be the gold-plated one—literally, in this case, I think. If accountable persons have a free hand to draw up these strategies, I am afraid that leaseholders will get ripped off.
Amendment 47 deletes Clause 93(5), which proposes that Clause 93(4)(a) does not apply where the accountable person is not aware of the resident or has taken reasonable steps to be aware of the residents. That is not good enough, in my opinion. This cop-out provision is not acceptable; managing agents or accountable persons could devise a strategy and claim that they could not find the residents to whom it applies and therefore could not consult them. “Accountable” means being accountable, knowing your residents and tracking them down, with no excuses—it is as simple as that.
Amendment 48 adds additional potential powers for the Secretary of State to make regulations. Again, I am not suggesting that he has to make them or building into the law that this has to happen, but this would give him a permissive power to act if he found a problem. It allows him to make further provision about the content of an engagement strategy and the way it is issued. That is small beer and pretty innocuous stuff which I am sure my noble friend can accept. I will be disappointed if he says he cannot.
Amendment 49 attempts to apply the same sanctions that are imposed on residents in Clauses 97 and 98. Clause 94 permits residents to request information from an accountable person but there is no sanction whatever if the accountable person fails or refuses to provide it. That is simply wrong; it is not a quid pro quo because, the other way round, residents are compelled to co-operate with the accountable person. I believe that the resident has as much right to demand compliance as the accountable person, who can demand compliance from residents and issue contravention notices under Clause 98.
Clause 95 states that the accountable person must set up a complaints procedure, but there is no sanction if he fails to do so. My Amendment 50 would give the Secretary of State an additional regulation-making power to create penalties for the failure of a principal accountable person to create such a complaints procedure. Again, I am not saying that the Secretary of State must do it and I am not setting out the penalties; I am just asking the Secretary of State to take the power of a regulation in case they need to use it in future because an accountable person has failed to set up a complaints procedure.
My Amendment 51 seeks to widen the potential definition of “relevant safety item”. At the moment, it is tied to “common parts” as defined in Section 69. That may or may not be good enough—I am not expert enough to know—but my amendment would change it to anything that may be defined in regulations. This would give more flexibility because, of course, regulations can be changed at any time, at the stroke of a ministerial pen, whereas an amendment to Section 69 would require primary legislation.
My Amendments 52 to 55 seek to delete “county court” and substitute it with “regulator”. I accept that the regulator may not be the right person but I think that it is heavy-handed to give the accountable person the right to go to the county court and threaten leaseholders that way. If we have a new regulator and First-tier Tribunals and an ombudsman, why drag the county court into it? Surely one of those bodies could be designated as the person to whom the accountable person goes to demand action from residents. I get the feeling that these clauses were designed to scare residents with the threat of court—for example, the accountable person saying, “Do this or we’ll take you to the county court”. That is heavy-handed; I believe that the regulator, the ombudsman or someone else should have that power instead.
My Amendment 85 would introduce a new clause to provide that, if a person with an interest in a property conducts a survey on it, they must share that information with everyone else who also has an interest in the property. Again, it is a power for the Secretary of State to introduce regulations if he is so minded; he is not forced to do so. My reasoning behind this is that we will get some landlords, freeholders and managing agents undertaking surveys of safety risks then saddling leaseholders with huge remedial costs while not sharing the safety report. Leaseholders would have to do their own at extra cost; that may not happen. There can be no justification for a safety survey undertaken by anyone in the building not being shared with everyone else in the property.
Finally, Amendment 87 would permit the Secretary of State, if he were so minded, to introduce regulations to permit the regulator, ombudsman or anyone else designated by the Secretary of State
“to act on behalf of a leaseholder or group of leaseholders in taking action against a developer, contractor, landlord or freeholder in relation to complaints about fire hazard remediation.”
We all know that a leaseholder challenging managing agents, freeholders and landlords is a real David and Goliath battle. In this case, David would not have a sling, or even a single pebble to fire at them. Leaseholders need a champion to fight their corner. My proposed new clause would permit the Government to appoint a champion and recover the costs so that the taxpayer does not have to pay a penny.
As I said, surely my noble friend the Minister cannot reject all these amendments as not technically correct or necessary because almost all of them would simply grant the Secretary of State permissive regulatory powers. He would not have to implement a single one of them but I would grant him the powers to make regulations if, at some time in the future, some of these problems arose and the Government had to act. Let us
build a permissive regulation-making power into the Bill now so that the Secretary of State can use it in future if need be. I beg to move.
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