Jeremy Corbyn
MP for Islington North · Your Party · United Kingdom
“In two minutes, I will do my best, Sir Desmond. I am proud to represent a very small urban area of Britain in which, over the years, we have managed to increase the number of parks and open spaces.”
“I grew up in a country area where we had a competition over who heard the first cuckoo in spring. It is that sort of change in understanding that we have to bring about if we are to win this debate on biodiversity and sustainability on our planet. The Government are pledged to the 30by30 target for the oceans.”
“We have to address the wider issue, which is the pollution emanating from our towns, cities and industries into our rivers and the water companies that do not deal with it. I have 13 seconds left, so I will simply say this: it is great that the House has come back to this issue and that so many Members want to speak today.”
“I congratulate the right hon. Member on becoming Prime Minister and on his stamina at taking questions for already even longer than the longest world cup match. He has said some helpful and useful things about housing, particularly on rough sleeping.”
“Surely the obvious answer is to bring in some kind of ceiling—a rent control of some sort—to the sector, and immediately look at not postponing the rise in the local housing allowance, but to bring real relief to people who are desperately up against it and subsidising their rent out of their benefits.”
“When the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) introduced the debate, he quite rightly drew attention to the huge work done by our constituency and parliamentary staff. It is right that we should thank them on this occasion and also thank all the parliamentary staff for what they do.”
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“I thank the Minister for the remarks she has just made, but would it be possible for the Government to put more direct pressure on Governments such as that of Azerbaijan about the treatment of academics, as well as about the individual cases that have been raised today?”
“Claudia’s family obviously want to know the truth; our ambassador, Jon Benjamin, wants to know the truth; I want to know the truth; and many others do, too. I thank Jon Benjamin for the work that he has done, and I thank Her Excellency the Mexican ambassador to Britain, Josefa González-Blanco, for the huge support and help she has given on the case, and for the work that she does as Mexico’s ambassador to Britain.”
“Is it trying to find out the truth about human rights abuses, or is it trying to sweep that under the carpet and get away? The former is absolutely the case; Mexico is trying to find out the truth. There are a couple of other cases that I will mention, one of them because it has a particular British connection: the case of Claudia Uruchurtu, who was living in this country with her sister and family. She went back to Mexico and lived in Oaxaca. She was involved in a demonstration against corruption by local officials, one of whom was subsequently arrested, charged and imprisoned for corruption. She was last seen getting into a van and was never seen again. Now she is declared dead and disappeared.”
“Those were the kind of people whose bodies were found, that were not the bodies of the Ayotzinapa 43, although I believe that the bodies of one or two of the Ayotzinapa 43 have since been identified. On my last visit to Mexico, I spoke to Minister Encinas, who is dealing with the investigation into all this. The Mexican authorities have arrested and charged a large number of police officers and army officers on this case, but they have still not got to the bottom of it or the truth of it. I give this example not because it is the only example of the brutality that corruption brings, but because it is just the tip of a very much bigger iceberg. Many criticisms are made, some of them justified, but the issue is the direction in which Mexican society is travelling.”
“The Ayotzinapa 43 were 43 students who, in 2014, left their rural agricultural workers training college on a bus to go to a demonstration. They all disappeared— all 43 of them. There was a hue and cry, and international outrage, and the authorities then started a rapid search to try to find out what had happened to them. What did they find? Unmarked graves, all along the area where the Ayotzinapa 43 had been, in Guerrero state, but none of them contained any bodies of the Ayotzinapa 43. The sadness and the tragedy of migrant people from central America trying to get to the USA, in order to get to some place where they might be able to sustain themselves economically because of the poverty in central America, is that they end up being prey to gangs and all kinds of awful things, and they end up dying in unmarked graves.”
“I was very pleased to be at the press conference when he re-announced that he was very sorry about the way that Julian Assange was being threatened with removal from this country to the United States, and he would always be welcomed and offered safety and sanctuary in Mexico, just as Mexico has offered sanctuary to many other people in the past. However, Mexico faces massive problems in dealing with corruption and human rights issues. I have examples, but first I want to pay a huge compliment and express my thanks to our ambassador to Mexico, Jon Benjamin, who is deeply engaged in Mexican society in every possible way. He is very well thought of and respected throughout the politics of Mexico, and has been incredibly helpful on human rights cases in which there is British involvement. I will mention some cases.”
“Such issues are important. I was pleased to attend President López Obrador’s daily press conference. He has a daily press conference for three hours every morning starting at six o’clock. He gets there at 5.30 to get ready for it, and then he takes questions for three hours. It is quite a sterling performance. I do not think that any other President anywhere in the world would do that. He asked me what I thought about the idea, and I said I thought it was completely crazy. He was determined to do it, anyway, and he insisted that I sit all through one to rid me of my criticism of the idea, and I did.”
“It wants to get them into university for free education to ensure it gets the professionals of tomorrow—the doctors, teachers, engineers and all the others who are needed. We should compliment the Government of Mexico on what they have achieved in those areas, and on what they are trying to achieve. There are huge environmental issues and concerns. Mexico relies heavily on a hydrocarbon-based economy. That was an issue for the Cárdenas Government, which nationalised the oil industry in the 1930s, and Mexico still relies heavily on petrochemicals. I would like to see a faster transition away from that to a sustainable economy. It is very easy for us to lecture on hydrocarbon-based economies’ transitioning, but we must recognise the difficulties of doing that in rapid time. Colombia is going through exactly the same problems.”
“Prior to his Government, the majority of the population had no access to free healthcare other than the weekly one-hour free advice that was given by doctors. Queues would form six and 10 hours before the allotted hour to try to get a few minutes with a doctor, which was all the poorest people could get. It is not completely there yet, but it has improved a great deal, and we should recognise and applaud that. The population is large and youthful, and education is key. The country has managed to put a lot more money into education, new school building programmes and, above all, new university programmes. Unlike this country, it does not aspire to load anyone who goes to university with a massive debt for the rest of their life.”
“There are also issues of healthcare and other reform issues. In our conversation, I said to López Obrador, “Is there anything you particularly like, admire or would want from Britain, as you move into the presidency?” I thought that was a bit of a leading question. He stared out of the window for a while, and I thought, “Oh God, I’ve asked the wrong question here.” Then he turned round and said, “The national health service. The principle of universal healthcare free at the point of need is something I absolutely admire about Britain, and I would love to emulate that in Mexico.” It has not been completely emulated in Mexico by any means, but there has been a huge increase in hospital building programmes, general practice programmes and access to healthcare.”
“We talked a lot about how he would face the issues. Anyone who has aspirations to go into government here knows that there are challenges, difficulties, conflicts and all that, but think for a moment of going into government in Mexico and being faced with a huge problem of massive poverty, injustice, corruption, human rights abuses, unaccountable public services, and enormous numbers of human rights complaints against the police and the armed services. It is not a simple operation. One has to pay tribute to the work of López Obrador’s Government in trying to eliminate poverty in Mexico, through a very large increase in the minimum wage, better rights and working conditions for everyone in Mexico, and work to ensure that companies are better employers, which has involved working with trade unions.”
“I wish that more British people who went on holiday in Mexico—well done them; it is good for the Mexican economy—would do a bit more than just go to the beach in Cancún, because there is so much more to see; as wonderful as the beach in Cancún is, it is important to see so much else. It is the diversity of Mexico that I fully understand. I want to express my appreciation to the many people in Mexico who have informed me a great deal, and hosted me on my visits to Mexico. The Government in Mexico is that of President López Obrador, who is coming to the end of his term of office; elections are coming up next year, when he will have been in office for six years. I know López Obrador very well—I consider him a friend—and I had a very interesting conversation with him for several hours on the day before he became President in 2018.”
“It was the 19th-century Government that brought about the great changes in Mexico. Benito Juárez’s constitution brought about rights, more democracy, and the beginnings of some degree of land reform and change. That was returned to in the 1917 constitution, at the end of the conflict in Mexico. We have to remember the rich vein of history that runs through Mexico, and the determination of people such as Zapata, who was a fantastic leader in many ways, to bring about justice and land reform in Mexico. That is a fundamental point of history that we should understand.”
“It was described wonderfully: “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” There were the USA’s wars with Mexico, in which it lost a lot of its territory, but the solidarity that some showed with the people of Mexico is not forgotten. Indeed, in the north of Mexico there is a very proud memory of the San Patricio brigade, of Irish people who started off fighting for the USA against Mexico, decided it was an unfair conflict, switched sides to join Mexico, and defeated the USA—as you do. Again, we should try to understand that history. Like other Latin American countries, Mexico gained independence from Spain, but it was not a liberation of the indigenous people or the poorest people across the country. The landowning system was maintained, as was so much else.”
“We should appreciate and understand that enormous cultural strength and history in Mexico. If anyone visits Mexico, I urge them to stay two days longer, whatever their plans, and go to the National Museum of History in Mexico City. It is so wonderful and so large—it takes someone at least two days to work their way around it—but it is an education in itself on the history of Mexico and world history. There is an invitation to everybody: on any delegation, stay two days more, just to understand that part of the history. Mexico also has the problem of its noisy neighbour to the north, the United States, and the history of that relationship, which has often been abusive.”
“There is that sense of absolute pride in the Maya and Aztec remains there, but there is also pride in the pre-Aztec and pre-Maya remains at Teotihuacán, near Mexico City and in magnificent places such as Chichén Itzá and all the others that are so famous on the global stage. Despite all the Hispanicisation—if that is not a tortuous word—of Mexican society after the invasion of the Spanish empire, the languages have survived. Indeed, some of the writings have survived in the great writings of an indigenous woman, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who was disliked by the Catholic Church because she could read, write and understand many languages and wrote a great deal of poetry, most of which was burned by the cardinals and others, but some of which survived and is now published in Mexico and other places.”
“We should recognise Mexico’s enormous contribution in a very principled, non-aligned way on the global stage in providing a place of exile for people, which has turned Mexico City into one of the most vibrant, multicultural cultural environments anywhere in the world, because of the coming together of people from all over the world. I have been to Mexico many times. As many will know, my wife, who is here today, is from Mexico as well, so I have been well educated on Mexican history. I always appreciate—the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) just made this point—that in Mexico there is an understanding and appreciation of history in a popular sense that does not really apply in any other country I have been to anywhere in the world.”
“One should also reflect that, for all of Mexico’s human rights problems, which I will come on to in a moment, it has traditionally been a place of welcoming for desperate people. Many republicans who had to leave Spain at the end of the Spanish civil war made their way to Mexico and were welcomed there, and they made a massive contribution to Mexican society. Indeed, many of those who were forced out of Chile 50 years ago this weekend, when the Government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a military coup, initially made their way to Mexico. Some went on to Europe, Cuba and other places.”
“I am delighted that we are having this debate on Mexico. I did not realise that it is the first one since 1938; I was not here at the time—I have been at all the subsequent ones. We have had many debates on Latin America, and obviously Mexico has been raised on a number of occasions. One should reflect, though, that in 1938 Mexico was going through a massive social revolution under the great Government of President Cárdenas, which brought about so much social justice and land reform for the people of Mexico. There is a memorial to the people of Mexico in Vienna that thanks them for being the only country in the League of Nations to oppose the Anschluss pact between Nazi Germany and Austria. Those anti-Nazis in Austria and Germany have never forgotten the role that Mexico played at that time.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and I endorse absolutely everything that he said. I hope that when the Minister comes to reply, he will acknowledge the severity and seriousness of this case, and will say that the Foreign Office will remain seized of it and will continue supporting any investigations to bring about justice. That will not bring Claudia’s life back, sadly, but the prosecution of elected public officials for this is an important change in the legal process in Mexico. It sends the important message that when any similar case comes up, people all around the world will continue to pursue it. We should recognise that.”
“I thank Mexico for its work on the international stage to try to bring about nuclear disarmament, peace and non-alignment around the world.”
“We should see that the Government of Mexico are trying to improve the social conditions of their people. That is promising, and it is going very well. There is an incredibly challenging situation, regarding relations with the USA and the historic levels of corruption and violence in society, brought about by the drug trade and drug war. While that is not for today’s debate, we may need to think more deeply about dealing with the drug issue in the USA and Europe by conducting a war in central America, Colombia and elsewhere. It clearly is not working and has not worked. Tens of thousands of people have lost their life in this drug war, and it has not brought about any solution. That may be for another day, but it is an issue that we need to be serious and think very deeply about.”
“All those countries need stronger economic bases, and they have elected Governments who are trying to bring about that. I hope that the British Government will recognise that it is important to have not just good relations with Mexico, but a sensible trade and aid relationship with central American Governments, to help them bring about better forms of administration, less corruption and less inequality in their societies. There is so much about Mexico that one could speak about for a great length of time, but I will not go on any longer, because I can see from the clock the way that time is moving on. I just want to thank the embassies for their work, and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton, for his work as chair of the all-party Mexico group.”
“That is because Mexico faces the endemic problem of its relationship with the USA to the north and the pressure of large numbers of desperately poor migrant people from the south trying to get into the USA. Successive US Administrations—all of them; Obama, Trump and Biden—have essentially taken a broadly hostile approach to migrants coming into the USA from the south, even though the US economy does incredibly well out of the work, which is often very low-paid, of people who have migrated there. I have discussed this issue at length with people in the Mexican Government. Ultimately, the only way forward is through better economic development and prospects for people all through central America, in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica and so on.”
“I acknowledge that the Minister is nodding. There are many, many cases that one could talk about. The one other case that I will mention is that of Miguel Orlando Muñoz Guzmán, an infantry lieutenant in the army who has been missing since 1993. He was last seen in Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua, and he could have been threatened with the danger of going missing. He has been searched for all these years. Although the Government of Mexico have taken some action on this case, we want them to carry out a complete, impartial and effective investigation to determine Mr Muñoz’s fate. Mr Muñoz is not the only one; his case is one of many that has been taken to the UN’s Committee on Enforced Disappearances.”
“My hon. Friend will be aware that the huge Tren Maya project that the Government of Mexico have been pursuing to build a 15,000 km railway line across the southern part of Mexico will be joined by some British Railways rolling stock in the near future. It is being shipped from Great Yarmouth as we speak to help make up the rolling stock needs of the new railway, so there is an improvement. There is an awful lot of railway technology in Britain that could well be marketed in Mexico.”
“On the question of human rights, I assume from what the Minister said that the continuing trade discussions with Mexico will include a human rights dialogue. Will he also give a commitment that the Government will remain supportive of the family of Claudia Uruchurtu and their needs in her case, not just for her but as an example of our willingness to support people who are trying to bring about human rights and justice? There are concerns that the mayor who was imprisoned after Claudia’s disappearance, Lizbeth Victoria Huerta, may well be released at the end of September, because she was not charged, in my view, with a sufficiently severe case put against her. There are concerns about the safety of the family as a result.”
“The Secretary of State is a thoughtful man, and today he has announced that we are going to be spending £50 billion on defence, at a time when every other Government Department is under financial pressure. He has also said that he predicts that this country will be at war within seven years. Does he have any idea or process to bring about more peace and rapprochement in the world, and less military threat? Or are we going to go on, year by year, increasing expenditure on defence and potentially being involved in more and more military conflicts? Does he have any idea different from that?”
“On his visit to Calais, the hon. Gentleman will have met people who were trying to get to this country. Did it strike him how utterly desperate many of them were, and how they are fleeing from wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and other places? Does he think that we have to address the wider issue of the reasons why people are fleeing and searching for asylum, not just in Europe but all over the world?”
“The idea that this country is facing a crisis so severe and so serious that we have to walk away from conventions that were hard fought for and have served the human rights of people across Europe very well is simply ridiculous. On a global scale, the numbers of people involved are enormous, because of economic stress around the world, wars, environmental degradation and destruction, and human rights abuse. That is why people seek asylum.”
“The Lords amendment will mean that any decision has to be taken in accordance with those conventions. If the Government are opposing those, what message are they giving, other than that they have no respect for international law and for the conventions we helped to write and sign up for, and that they want to walk away from them? Walking away from them will mean that we have no regard for the rights of people seeking asylum if the European Court of Human Rights finds us to be wanting in that respect. Therefore, should any other country want to walk away from the European convention on human rights, for example, Turkey, Poland or Hungary, all of which have issues with their legislation in respect of the convention, we will be in no position to criticise anybody ever again.”
“I want to speak mainly about Lords amendment 1B, and to follow up on the remarks made by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). I heard him make exactly the same argument in the Council of Europe, when, to the consternation of most of its members, he argued that Britain had to criticise and walk away from the European court of human rights because one case was found against Britain. Many more cases have been found against almost every other country that signed up to the European convention on human rights and, therefore, the Court. I support Lords amendment 1B because it gives some protection under the 1950 European convention, the 1951 UN convention and the conventions on statelessness, on the rights of the child and on action against trafficking.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I absolutely agree with the point that he has just made. This also fits in with the 1989 convention on the rights of the child, which the British Government very rapidly and quite correctly signed up to at that time. Withdrawing from that convention surely weakens that protection.”
“We should accept that our country is enriched by those who have come here with their skills, knowledge and determination to create a better society, rather than passing this tawdry little Bill, which may well be rejected again by the Lords—I hope it is—and by the courts, knowing full well that even if the Home Secretary’s dream of sending so many people to Rwanda were carried out, they could not be housed or processed there. Can we not just turn the dial round for once and, instead of maintaining the pretence that this country was always friendly to people who are desperate, let us prove it and show that we are supportive and welcoming of desperate people who want to contribute to our community?”
“Believe me, they are desperate. There are people who have managed to walk, almost, from Eritrea or Afghanistan. They have crossed the Mediterranean and other seas and gone through immense danger. They are looking for a place of safety—and what do we offer them? Nothing more than a hostile environment and being sent to Rwanda. Should we not look at this thing a bit differently? Should we not look at it from a humanitarian point of view? Should we not also give refugees here the right to work? We have 100,000 vacancies in the NHS alone and a skills shortage in almost every industry, and we have highly skilled, highly intelligent people who could no longer stay in the country they came from and are looking for a place of safety. Perhaps we could be slightly more humanitarian and decent about this and accept that we have a responsibility.”
“Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and others have pointed out, the number of asylum seekers in Britain is low compared with that in the rest of Europe, and the number in Europe is low compared with that in the rest of the world. Why are there 70 million people around the world not in a place they can call their own home? The answer is: wars; human rights abuse; and environmental degradation. What are we going to do? Are we going to put up barbed wire everywhere, send gunboats everywhere, in order to try to deter desperate people? Or are we going to do something about it by trying to improve the living conditions of people in places that they are trying to flee from and improve their human rights situation? I have met people in Calais, and I have met people in this country who have come from Calais.”
“It is consternation at the endless attacks on the European Court of Human Rights and on the European convention on human rights, which protects the rights of people in this country as well as other countries around the world. This did not all come from nowhere; it came from the hostile environment, deliberately created by the Conservative party and the coalition Government, which had such a devastating effect on the Windrush generation. It comes from constant media references to the “asylum wave” and the horrible stories that are written about people seeking asylum. As the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, my right hon.”
“What protection would we be offering to people we know are already being badly treated and whose only protection is the rights that come through those conventions? The Government are cynically and deliberately doing this. I attend the Council of Europe as one of our representatives, and I have to say that Members of the Council of Europe from many countries—these are not necessarily people of the left, by any manner of means—are astonished at how Britain is walking away from all these conventions that it promoted in the past. The response from those at the Council of Europe is consternation about why we are doing that.”
“This Bill is appalling in so many ways, but it is walking us rapidly away from the European convention on human rights and, with it, the European Court of Human Rights; from the 1951 Geneva convention protecting the rights of asylum; from the 1954 convention protecting people who are suffering from statelessness; from the 1989 convention on the rights of the child; and from the 2005 trafficking of children convention. That is why I strongly support Lords amendment 1, which was introduced by Baroness Chakrabarti to try to reverse this whole process. If we walk away from international conventions that this country knowingly and willingly signed up for—indeed, we drafted many of them—who are we then to criticise Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Russia or any other country where we believe there is a breach of those convention rights?”
“I shall be brief, Madam Deputy Speaker, because we do not have much time, although there is a great deal I could say on this Bill. There could not be a greater contrast than the one between the cold, calculating speech we have just heard from the hon. Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) and the humanitarian approach taken by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) in trying to defend international law and humanitarian principles in what we do.”
“They often dispute the capital works charge or service charge. Sometimes they are right and sometimes they are not, but there is a clear process by which they can make that complaint. They can make it to the local authority, which is accountable. It is not always perfect, but there is usually agreement at the end, because there is a degree of accountability. With the companies, there is no accountability whatsoever. Every power lies with the person who has invested money to make a vast return, and the returns that are being made on leasehold properties are enormous. I hope that the Minister will recognise that the stress that we are expressing—”
“They then discovered that the company was “proposing decorating works on our building at a cost of £19800. We received a quote of £7600 for exactly the same work from a local contractor. Although we nominated this contractor, as is our right, they have chosen to go ahead with the company that they always use. We can challenge this at tribunal but we would need £8-£10000 upfront costs”. They have to pay that even to get a hearing. If ever there was an area that needed substantial investigation and reform, it is surely this one. People feel disempowered, angry and frustrated. They cannot sell and cannot move, and they have no idea what charges are coming down the road. I have dealt with many cases of leaseholders who either bought their place from the local authority under right to buy or who bought it from somebody else who did.”
“Upon inspection it became clear that the power provider…chosen for us failed to take a single meter reading for the entire year and ‘estimated’ our bill.” When the residents highlighted that, the company demanded they pay the total figure anyway. They are now in dispute over it. There are many examples of excessive charges for minor or often unnecessary works or, as the hon. Member for Dartford pointed out, ludicrous charges for the almost non-existent cleaning of common parts. That can be just running a hoover over the carpet once a month, yet people are told to pay several hundred pounds a year for that kind of thing. It is the same with refuse collection, rubbish collection and so on. There must be some big changes to that. The last testimony I will give is from somebody who bought a flat that they believed would be affordable.”
“The companies consistently use the same small set of suppliers across many of their properties, and those suppliers are also complicit in the running up or invoicing of ridiculously high charges across their whole estate portfolio. When residents try to communicate with the companies, they get fobbed off, blocked, or threatened with legal action and legal letters. The stress levels are appalling. Let me give an example about electricity: “In our most recent service charge 3 months ago, we were collectively billed £4k for commons parts electricity”— the common parts have the amazing total of 10 LED lightbulbs in them, and: “This was 10x the estimated expense for the period.”
“Totally unnecessary work is created by the management company, and the leaseholder has no say in whether it is done and no say in the contractor who does it, yet they have to pay for it. There is an incentive for the company to choose the most expensive contractor and then charge on for it. Some of these companies are also incredibly litigious and threaten to take flat owners to court to start proceedings for repossession as soon as there is any element of late payment. Remember that many people who buy leasehold flats for the first time are young and have young families. They are in the most expensive and difficult times of their lives, and there is the greatest pressure on them as a result, so the stress levels are huge.”
“Indeed, perhaps it was not designed at all, but it is so badly in existence that there is a positive incentive to manage badly, charge extortionately and be abusive towards those who live in these leasehold properties. This has been recounted by the hon. Members for St Ives (Derek Thomas), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and for Dartford and I can absolutely relate to it. Many people have got in touch with me about this and I want to give an example. In a sense, the business model of those who buy into the leasehold sector is appalling and offers incentives in all the wrong directions. There are five examples of that. The company that owns the property sets out charges to the leaseholders in the property and will directly benefit from having unnecessary work done in the building.”
“Any place that is now sold in my constituency as a single-family home inevitably gets bought by a property company and is divided up into a number of flats. Dividing a place up into flats is not of itself wrong, but the quality of the conversion is often a problem as is the resulting ownership issue. In my constituency, people who have bought a flat either in a new development or in a converted property are suffering appalling levels of stress; they believed they were going to have to pay a reasonable ground rent and reasonable service charges and management fees but then find after a very short time living there that they have no control whatsoever over any of those issues. The system is very badly designed.”
“It is a pleasure to take part in the debate. I thank the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) for securing it, and every one of us could amplify everything he said with very similar experiences from our own communities, even though the areas we live in are often very different geographically. My constituency is spread between about 40% social rented, 30% owner-occupation and 30% in the private rented sector. The debate is essentially about owner-occupation and leaseholds, but within that 30% very few, or certainly a declining number, are in what I would call traditional freehold properties—where somebody owns the house and land, and their costs are their mortgage, if they have one, and all the relevant bills, but there are no service charges because there is no other involvement.”
“I see the Minister nodding; I thank her. I hope that she understands that the issue is not isolated to any one part of the country. The whole country is suffering from this, and we urgently need a serious process of leasehold reform that gives people some power over their own lives and in their own homes.”
“That sounds like a very promising development. Is the Minister aware that there is sometimes a problem with the ability to challenge because of legal processes or the enormous costs involved, so some people, such as the residents I was referring to, do not have the power to make a challenge even though that would be very justified?”