My Lords, I follow the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Young, in pressing the Minister further on this vexed issue of ground rents. The history of the proposals on ground rents is of a kind of mirage on the horizon, which the Government are constantly hoping to attain, and then it vanishes at the moment when action is expected to be taken. Perhaps I can just sum up the past, because it is important to understand quite how firm the commitments the Government have given are. They have not just raised this as an issue for consultation; they have given very firm commitments up to now. I will then press the Minister further, not just on when the Government intend to respond to the consultation which, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, is due, but also on some of the key issues of principle that underlie that consultation.
This process began on 9 November last year, when the Secretary of State issued a press notice from his department, headed “Ground rent reforms to save thousands for leaseholders”. It was a straightforward statement that said:
“Proposals to slash ground rents and save homeowners thousands have been unveiled by the government today”.
The 9 November statement said not that the Government were consulting on whether there should be reform of ground rents, but what the specific reform should be.
The press notice of 9 November set out, in respect of historic ground rents—not new peppercorn leases—the five options of
“setting ground rents at a peppercorn … putting in place a maximum financial value which ground rents could never exceed … capping ground rents at a percentage of the property value … limiting ground rent in existing leases to the original amount when the lease was granted … freezing ground rent at current levels”.
So, in November, the Government set out five options, and the consultation was to choose between those five. Each of the five, if I may comment on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has differing impacts on those who currently earn the ground rents, and some would appear to take more account of their rights than others. What the consultation does not have is an option of no reform of ground rents.
So my first question to the Minister is: is it still the Government’s position—this is a fundamental issue that either this Government will grapple with, or the next one will have to inherit—that there will be a capping of ground rents? Or is it their position that the status quo might be an option?
To muddy the water further, when the Secretary of State introduced the Bill on 11 December—repeating all kinds of points about feudalism which the noble
Lord, Lord Moylan, does not like and which my noble friend Lady Taylor pointed out that he had expanded on in his previous speech—he came down very firmly in favour of restricting ground rents for historic leases at peppercorn value. What he said regarding the conclusion of the consultation on the five options that had just been announced will I think be of some importance to us at later stages of the Bill, or to a future Government. He said that,
“at its conclusion, we will legislate on the basis of that set of responses in order to ensure that ground rents are reduced, and can only be levied in a justifiable way … my favoured approach would be, and I believe that it should be, a peppercorn. Of course, if compelling evidence is produced, as a Secretary of State with great civil servants, I will look at it, but my preference is clear, and I suspect that it is the preference of the House as well”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/12/23; col. 659.]
I too suspect that it was; I think there would have been a cross-party majority in the House of Commons. Indeed, there would be a cross-party majority in this House for limiting ground rents.
That leads to the issue of the disappearing consultation, and why the Government have given no response to it. I suspect that the content of the briefing to the Sunday Times, which the noble Lord, Lord Young, referred to, is more significant than we might be giving credence to. I suspect that it goes to the heart of the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, raised, and a concern on the part of the Government that there will be protracted legal action, or that they might have to provide some form of compensation.
I do not support the status quo and I believe that, where profits are made by companies and private entities in a totally unjustifiable way, injurious to those on whom they impact, it is a proportionate use of Parliament’s power to intervene to stop it—particularly in cases where that harm is set to increase, which is the big problem at the heart of many of these ground rent complaints, where you have formulae for increasing ground rents that are completely beyond the power of existing tenants to influence. Though it is true that tenants might have the right not to buy, if this is a totally onerous and unjustifiable imposition in the first place, it is right that Parliament should intervene.
However, it is not my view that matters in respect of this; we need to know the Government’s view—not just when they will respond to the consultation and whether they still stand by the five options but, crucially, their view on the legal position with respect to the rights of ground landlords and whether they might have a legal case or be liable for compensation. It is extremely important that we know this, because we may have to legislate in a different way depending on their view.
As it happens, the Secretary of State did address that issue in his Second Reading speech. This is a very Michael Gove statement, because it is so robust and yet not followed up by any action, which is a characteristic of his:
“I know that some people will say, ‘What about A1P1 rights under the European convention on human rights? You are taking property away from people.’ I respect the ECHR, but if it stands in the way of me defending the interests of people in this country who have been exploited by ground-rent massaging, I am determined to legislate on behalf of those people, because their interests matter more than that particular piece of legislation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/12/23; col. 659.]
My final question to the Minister is: is it still the Government’s position that if they are persuaded that the right option is to limit or, in effect, eliminate ground rents, they are justified in doing so despite the European Convention on Human Rights? I would be very grateful if she could give us specific answers to these specific questions when she replies.
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