Richard Fuller
MP for North Bedfordshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I thank the Minister for his clear exposition of the Bill’s clauses. He emphasised the importance of the 2026 royal trustees’ review. The interesting thing is that it is their forecast of their needs over the next five years on which a lot of the mechanism rests.”
“I thank the Minister’s colleague the Exchequer Secretary, because on the 11th of this month, he wrote in reply to questions from my colleague, answering questions about some of the points that we may get into in detailed consideration of the Bill.”
“In his letter, the Minister said: “The Household forecasts that this income will increase by around 25% over the review period, based on recent performance, detailed modelling and increased visitor capacity… If income were lower than forecast, there is no expectation that the Grant would increase above £99.9 million per year.” Can the Min…”
“I thank the Minister for his speech. This follows a recent debate on ways and means that his colleague the Exchequer Secretary had with my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild). I do not wish to repeat the points that were made on that occasion. His Majesty’s official Opposition are supportive of this Bill.”
“Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) asked about powers to adjust the grant between reviews and the circumstances in which they might be used, the answer from the Treasury was: “These powers are intended for exceptional circumstances and are not expected to be used routinely”, which, of course, is the definition of except…”
“Will the Minister explain how those financial assessments were made? What discount rate was used to work out what the estimates might be? I am not questioning it, and I do not need a precise figure; what I am looking for is some comfort from the Minister that he feels that those financial projections, that model and the work of the truste…”
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“The allegations against employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency were appalling, but UNRWA remains a vital source of food and support for the Palestinian people. I can already hear voices from the Conservative Back Benches that seem to be calling for us to throttle funding for UNRWA for the long term. Can my right hon. Friend advise us on what will happen between now and April, as regards his representations to the Chancellor on the Budget and contingency funding for this organisation after April?”
“I want to take up the point the hon. Gentleman made about the timing of the ground rent review and the implications for subsequent change in the Bill. Has the Opposition looked at what the potential legal liability might be if we move forward with this Bill without clarity on what happens on ground rent, particularly as this is retrospective legislation, and whether there is a potential liability for the taxpayer if that co-ordination does not work effectively?”
“As the Minister is contemplating what he will put in his letter, including a response to the hon. Member for Brent North, could I gently remind him that auditing is an expensive procedure? There will be a number of instances where these accounts might fall short of what would be required under existing Companies House legislation. There are some metrics and things out there that the Government could use, but he should bear in the mind the cost of auditing.”
“The Minister speaks quickly and is knowledgeable about this matter; I just want to put it into everyday speak that the rest of us can understand. I think that the intention behind the Opposition’s amendment is to be clear that there is a difference between penalties and damages. They do not want the burden of proof to be on leaseholders, in this case, and there is tremendous merit to that. Whatever we put into law has to be accessible to people. I think the Minister said that if we change the word from “damages” to “penalties”, that would raise the hurdle. Can he assure us of his objection to the proposed amendment in everyday speak,? As the Bill is drafted, the hurdle will be lower, and there will be no burden of proof on the leaseholder for the penalties/damages to take effect.”
“Member for Brent North has just slapped himself on the wrist, which is probably how many businesses will see it. Can I gird the Minister’s loins and encourage him to take up his shield and his sword of righteousness in defence of individual leaseholders and say, “This amount is too low. We shall change the legislation. This party and this Government stand to make the intent of what we will do to truly bite on those who are doing wrong”?”
“A lot of the measures in this part of the Bill are trying desperately to unpick complicated things and rebalance them in favour of people who own their own home but do not run a large business, or people with small financial interests, where there are 30 or 40 of them against one person with a significant financial interest that covers all those people. In trying to rebalance things here, we all want to ensure that these measures are as effective as possible and that there is enough encouragement to ensure that the good practice the Government want to see can be done effectively. The concern that I share with the shadow Minister is that the current levels of penalties just look like a cost of doing business. [ Interruption. ] Indeed! The hon.”
“I am tempted to frame page 25 of today’s amendment paper, because it includes the shadow Minister’s amendment 17, which would increase the penalties from £5,000 to £30,000, and my amendment 142, which would increase them from £5,000 to £50,000. I thought it was usually the Conservative party that is pro-business and tries to keep costs on business low, but then I recalled that these penalties apply to people doing something wrong, and of course the Labour party is always soft on criminals. Seriously, though, the shadow Minister and I have a clear intent, which I am sure is shared by the Minister.”
“Sorry, I am such a pedant, but “per challenge” could relate to person A making the challenge that report x was not done on time, and then person B making the challenge that report x was not done on time. Do those two challenges count as two separate challenges because they are brought by two different people, although they are for the same objection, or as one challenge because they are for the same objection, although they are presented by two different people?”
“I think the shadow Minister is mixing two things up when he says that people get a share. The issue here is about changing the behaviour of the person who is doing wrong, not “I’m going to get this much money out of it.” The incentive is for the person who is doing wrong. Does the shadow Minister agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Brent North about clogging up the system: why would 150 people put one challenge in when they could put 150 challenges in?”
“Therefore, in certain circumstances it may be the case that people are paying twice for the same services covered by what are defined as estate management running costs.”
“I want to probe a bit more, because of the speed with which we shot through clause 39—with your leave, Chair, I am sure you will find this in order, because clause 40 also relates to relevant costs. Clause 39(10) says that relevant costs, “in relation to a dwelling, means costs which are incurred by an estate manager in carrying out estate management for the benefit of the dwelling or for the benefit of the dwelling and other dwellings.” As the Government were considering clauses 39 and 40, the general limitations on what might be a relevant cost, what consideration did the Minister or the Government give to the fact that there are some costs that might be covered within that general limitation that, for some people, are covered by payments they make through their council tax?”
“As we heard in the evidence sessions, the current impact assessment may potentially omit a significant amount of value that will be taken into account as part of the ground rent reform. If it is the Government’s intention to introduce amendments on that, as the shadow spokesman was asking, it would be useful to have clarity from the Minister on that, but we should also ask the Minister whether an updated impact assessment can be presented to incorporate what the value of those recommendations would be.”
“I want to speak briefly in support of the third point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, in which he addressed the interaction of the Bill with the Government’s ground rent consultation. If I heard him correctly, he was asking the Government at least to be clear as to how those recommendations will affect the Bill. He was asking the Government to be clear on their position; I will not go as far as that, because I think the Government have the discretion to decide when they want to announce that or not. However, there is another issue that the Minister could perhaps consider: the impact assessment on the valuation, which we, as Members of Parliament, are being asked to address in this Bill.”
“Once they make a decision, those points of value can be forecast. They are no longer hypothetical but judgmental, so it really is within the Minister’s remit to be able to move from hypothetical to his own forecast. Having said that, I fully accept what the Minister has said so far.”
“I am listening carefully to the Minister and sort of accept what he says, but may I make a couple of points? First, he has talked about how the Bill has to go through the House of Lords, but we are the democratically elected Chamber. The interaction of the two provisions represents substantial transfers in value between different parts of our community—rightly or wrongly. Decisions should correctly be made with the full information by this House. We should not go through a procedure when information is presented in the unelected House, which then comes back to the Commons. With our remit as Back-Bench Members of Parliament, we are very restricted in what we can do to amend that. Secondly, the Minister talked about how the points about value are hypothetical. That is the case only because the Government have not made a decision.”
“The Minister just mentioned that schedule 2 eliminates marriage value. He will be aware, from the impact assessment, that there is a financial value associated with marriage value. Can the Minister tell me whether the Government think that marriage value is a real value—that it has intrinsic value—or is it just a number that has no material value at all? Is there something behind what marriage value is, and what is the rationale for eliminating it?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his summary, which I think is very accurate. Given that the Government have assessed that there is something real there, and decided that they want to eliminate the marriage value—obviously, a lot of work has gone into the preparation for that—what representations has he received about the legal underpinnings of this particular aspect of the legislation for those from whom that value is being taken?”
“Does the Minister accept that the absence of knowing what will be in the Secretary of State’s mind about what rate he or she may set affects the analysis of what is being done economically with the Bill quite significantly? What thought has he given to the legal challenge risks of holding back what is in the Secretary of State’s mind about what the rates would be?”
“It is perfectly within the ambit of the Opposition to say, in the Programming Sub-Committee, “We will do clause 9 stand part, then clauses 10 and clause 11, and then schedule 2 separately,” but in the planning done by the Government and Opposition Whips, we decided to put all the provisions together, so that we brush past them very quickly, hoping that no one will notice. I notice a twinkle in the eye of the hon. Member for Brent North.”
“My first observation, which is not specific to the Bill, is that whenever there is a clear consensus between Government and Opposition, problems usually arise subsequently. We have just spoken about 29 pages of schedules and two pages of clauses —31 pages of a 130-page Bill—and I heard one or two sentences from the shadow Minister. [ Interruption. ] Oh, the shadow Minister is coming back in later; good. I am encouraged. I was called to speak straight after my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch, rather than us bouncing between Government and Opposition Members, so I was worried. My first concern was that we were going through a very large proportion of the Bill very quickly. Grouping so much of the Bill together is a choice.”
“It is a good to see you in the Chair, Dame Caroline. We are blessed on this Committee to have three people who have been Housing Ministers, the great experience and expertise of the hon. Member for Brent North, and the good graces of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. I was recently speaking about the Bill to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), who pointed out that there were discussions about some of the measures in the Bill when he was the adviser to Sir John Major in No. 10 in the 1990s. I have none of the expertise or experience of any of the people I have just mentioned, so it is with humility that I rise to make some observations.”
“Well, maybe. I am not a mind reader, either of the mind of the shadow spokesperson or the mind of the great British public. They will make their decision at the next election and, I hope, return a Conservative Government for a fifth consecutive term, but that is not the import of my points today. My first point was that the public should beware when they see such circumstances, not because anything is necessarily wrong, but because it is a leading indication that consensus is overwhelming scrutiny.”
“It is a fair point, but I think we can get our heads around most of it. The general principles in this Bill are no different from those of others. There are some formula there; and when we see a formula such as one over one minus c to the power of n with a deferment rate of theta, we get worried that we do not understand. It takes us back to doing calculus at school. However, we can understand it—though within it there are some important things. The shadow Minister makes a good point, but there are amendments to schedule 2: the Government’s, his, and mine. I will make the point—and if I am wrong the Clerks will correct me, through the Chair—that we are debating the overall principle of schedule 2, not just the detail, though it is fair to raise some points about that.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why we are passing this legislation. I want to be clear about that, because there will be circumstances in freeholder-leaseholder relationships where the performance has been inadequate or poor. There may be circumstances where the performance has been perfectly reasonable.”
“I agree with the shadow Minister. I am not trying to undermine the intentions of the Bill—I agree with them—but I want them to be legally secure, and I want to probe and understand them. He said that these are hypothetical profits, but they are not quite hypothetical. They would only be hypothetical if they were not real, but as we have already heard, they are. They are calculated profits, and it is a matter of how that calculation is determined that is at issue, not whether they are hypothetical or real.”
“The idea that we are expunging values that relate to something real, which is under contract, is a material point in trying to make this legislation bulletproof or, as the Minister rightly says, to ensure that, in a hotly contested area, the Government get it right. In circumstances where there are real values —although perhaps massively overemphasised—where performance has been exemplary or to contract, where there has been no question of the performance required under contract, and, finally, where there has not been price gouging, or this automatic doubling every two years, and the rents have remained the same, what is the reason to apply legislation retrospectively?”
“I am just so glad it was not me. The Minister and shadow Minister are far more experienced than I am on this matter, so I am drawing on a much more limited data set than they are. But, to date, I have not heard loud and clear that there is no such thing as marriage value. I have heard that there are questions about how it is calculated and that we do not think it should apply, which is a political point of view. If the shadow Minister is trying to say that there is something else he wants, between the issues of calculation and of making a political decision to transfer it, that is interesting to me. I do not think that he has been trying to make that point, and I certainly do not think we have heard that evidenced. It is a crucial point.”
“I am just saying that the principle is that, whether ground rent is real or not, it is still subject to the fact that it was part of a contract that was signed, and that will have weight in any legal challenge to the Bill.”
“The former Minister makes an excellent point. She knows much more about this than I do and therefore I am very wary about falling into the trap of answering her question directly. What I will say is that, for the purposes of my speech today, what I think is not important. What is important is this: what will the courts find, and how have we ensured that the Bill is robust in those circumstances? I will say, without answering my hon. Friend’s question, that people sometimes sign contracts for things that they do not use or that have no value, but there is an argument that they signed a contract and it had these line items in it. People may sign a contract that gives them access to a swimming pool or gym and they may not use it. I do not mean to be pejorative, because these are very important issues.”
“We are putting a lot of faith in the Government to get that right. We are dealing with different situations: where, in a relationship between a freeholder and a leaseholder, freeholders are providing poor service or have been price gouging; or where other freeholders have entered into contracts, done all the right things under that contract and behaved in a very excellent way, but we are now retrospectively going to change all their contracts. I want to put on the record some of my concerns about doing so. I understand that the intention of the House as a whole is to move forward, but I am interested in whether the Minister has any comment on that—he does not need to—or has something interesting to add.”
“Dame Caroline, you were not in Committee when I made a point of order on the hon. Member for Brent North, perhaps inadvisably, but this time I thought his intervention was very helpful, so I would like to commend him. That point is very helpful to my understanding, and I appreciate his building my understanding further. We will have to see. My purpose in making these points is to look at the possibilities of legal challenge. I am not a lawyer so I am probably one of the first to do that anyway, but the principles behind schedule 2 relate to existing contracts and make a political decision to redistribute value to full or some extent. In Committee, however, we are doing this where we do not have complete financial information about the extent to which we open ourselves to the charge that our decision will have unintended consequences.”
“In order to be fair to participants, it is important that the Secretary of State has regard to regional variations. I hope the Minister can provide some encouraging words on market conditions and tying the discount rate to some form of understanding of market interest rates.”
“When someone buys an investment and ties up their money for a longer period of time, they pay a different rate of interest than when they do so for a shorter period of time. It is appropriate for the Government to have regard to that when setting the discount rates. That is why I have tabled this amendment. I am interested to know what the Minister has to say about it. Amendment 149 is about regional variations in market conditions. The Minister will know that a large part of the Bill relates to London, but not all of it. The way property prices move in Bedfordshire—I see that another Bedfordshire MP, the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire, is here—and in other parts of the country is different from London. Market conditions vary.”
“Obviously, it is in the interests of party A for the rate to be set high and in the interests of party B for the rate to be set low, but there is a concern about the rate being fixed without certain guidance. The shadow Minister has argued that the rate should have regard to the desirability of encouraging leaseholders to acquire their freehold at the lowest possible cost; that fits the imperative that informed the Bill. My view is that we ought to first encourage the Secretary of State to anchor his or her judgment on the market rate of interest—not a specific market rate of interest, but a set of market rates of interest. The reason is that there will be leases of certain terms: five, 10, 15, 30, 50 or 100 years.”
“The shadow Minister made some very good points that I am sure the Minister will respond to. It is important to understand that it is always possible for Government to fix market rates and interest, either directly or by the courts, but interest rates do change; the world does change. We can find ourselves adrift on interest rates relatively quickly. The Sportelli judgment, I think, was made at a time when the Bank rate was 4.5%. In that context, the setting of the discount rate did not seem particularly inappropriate. Three years later, the Bank rate went to 0.5% as a consequence of quantitative easing, and stayed like that for seven years.”
“I rise in support of my amendments 146 to 149, which, similarly to the shadow Minister’s amendment 2, seek to provide some framework and guidance around, and a better understanding of, how the Secretary of State will determine these very important discount rates. I go back to the point about the importance of trying to give as much clarity as possible about what we are passing into legislation and to avoid unintended consequences. The Minister will be aware that some of the businesses affected may be subject to statutory disclosures. It is very hard to make a formal statutory disclosure if one is not clear what the impact will be. My amendment seeks to provide that. I want to explain some of the reasons why I have chosen to focus on the issues of market rates and interest, and regional trends.”
“We have heard about the managing agents, but it is the estate agents, the developers and the housing associations who are selling these dreams. You have seen lots of people on Tuesday who feel they have been mis-sold, and others will continue to be mis-sold. These estate agents are the first port of call for the people going into the process, and we have to remember that people are buying a home, and they have not done it before. They might have bought a couch or something like that, but this is the first time they are doing this, and they can get it so wrong. People need to be protected. The estate agent is the only part of the professional world of property that is not regulated. The estate agent is that person there who is alongside the person trying to get their dream, which could go massively wrong.”
“Ms Paula Higgins : You make a really interesting point, but there are things that I would not want to see happening. We also work in the new homes area. We have legislated for a New Homes Ombudsman—fantastic—but we have not enacted it yet, and we now have a more confusing landscape for people who are buying new homes, who are probably also leaseholders and probably also shared owners; they have another competing code. It is incredibly confusing. That is not what I want to see happening. Regulation means enforcement. There are a lot of things that estate agents have to do now, and we know from our research that they are not doing what they should be doing. The problem is that people do not have the right of redress if something happens.”
“That means that 50% of people are not members of ARMA and are not part of their regime, along with the Institute of Residential Property Management—obviously, ARMA and the IRPM have now merged to form The Property Institute. They have done amazing work to fill the void, where there has been a lack of an independent regulator, and I think working with Andrew and with them would be a really good starting point for the Government to create a regulatory regime. Certainly we would stand ready as an organisation to help with that. I just think that giving leaseholders the confidence that there is an independent body that they can go to when they have disputes with their property manager or their landlord is really important—as people do with Ofwat or Ofgem or other regulators. Having that independent regulator is really, really important.”
“But we run the risk of just vomiting out a whole new set of what we think is going to be the solution. As you said, Ms Higgins, we have a once-in-20-years chance. I said this to Mr Gardiner on the way in—he goes back to 1993 thinking about this, and he is an MP now. What are your thoughts? Give us some guidance on simplification and standardisation versus regulation, and then regulation of people, regulation of process and the provision of redress. Bob Smytherman : I would not reinvent the wheel. I don’t know whether you have had The Property Institute in yet, and Andrew Bulmer from the Association of Residential Managing Agents. They fill the gap as the main membership organisation for managing agents. Andrew will give you the figures, but I believe they represent about 50% of all property managers of leasehold property.”
“Q We have been talking a bit about regulation, which is often seen as some sort of answer to problems and frequently is not—or, at least, is different from simplification or standardisation, which each of you have mentioned at different points. I am interested in your thoughts when it comes to property managers and managing agents, about where you think the interaction is between simplification and regulation, and whether regulation is a matter of regulating the process—“You must provide this set of information by this date”—or of regulating the people—“Thou must have this qualification in order to do x ”—or whether it is about the process of redress: being able to get some compensation at the end; because we are going to be wrestling with all those things here. They all have a role to play, to a greater or lesser extent.”
“I also wanted to pick up on the matter of transparency of service charges. Transparency is clearly essential: people should know what they are paying for. However, shared owners and other leaseholders should not have to effectively take on an audit function where it falls upon them to scrutinise accounts. They should be able to place some degree of reliance on the accuracy and proportionality of the accounts that they receive. I cannot speak to how that will be achieved, but I think that the onus should be on the providers of services and service charge accounts to be better, rather than leaseholders and shared owners having more and more obligations to scrutinise and take whatever action is required if problems are identified in those accounts.”
“Sue Phillips: I do not have the expertise to speak directly to the regulation of property management, but I would like to pick up on a couple of related issues from a shared-ownership perspective. The first is that the evidence submitted to the Advertising Standards Authority’s inquiry into Black Friday marketing highlighted the fact that industry sector standards for the marketing of shared ownership are lower than other standards that are out there. For example, shared ownership is currently excluded from the New Homes Quality Board’s code of practice. That simultaneously reflects the complexity of shared ownership but also the fact that shared owners do not have access to the same level of protections as other homebuyers in relation to new build codes. That is slightly off to one side.”
“Q When you say “regulated”, do you mean they should have a qualification—that they can tick a box to say, “I was qualified to do this”—or redress, as in, there is a regulatory body above them? Ms Paula Higgins: That is a really good point. I know the RoPA stuff—the regulation of property agents working group; in fact, we gave evidence to it. A tick box is probably not the right thing. Perhaps it is more about a proper single place for redress, but as I think Andrew Bulmer mentioned, that is the ambulance at the bottom, and what matters is what is at the top. What we don’t want is people doing online qualifications and getting a tick, and then they can jump up as an estate agent and come back down again. So I appreciate the complexities and I look forward to seeing what your deliberations will be.”
“Q My questions are for Professor Hodges. We have to deal with the Bill as it is—on the commonhold thing—so, “Get it done” is not particularly helpful, if I may say. It might be a good indication, but not particularly detailed, so help us on the detail of that. Often in Parliament, we regulate and think that that is the solution. I do not know whether you have had a chance to look at some of the regulatory details in the Bill, but what would be your guidance be to us about where it is pointing in the right direction, where it might be going wrong, and the pitfalls that we should look out for? Professor Hodges: As far as the detail of the Bill is concerned, looking technically at what is in there without expressing a view as whether it is a good or a bad idea substantively, it seems to me to be fine.”
“I will come to that in a minute. But just in here, on this Bill, is there anything that we should look out for? Professor Hodges: As far as the detail is concerned, there is nothing that stands out to me, as a regulatory expert, that says, “This is a problem”.”
“That involves getting all the stakeholders together —again, that goes back to the first point about how it is not just a regulator telling people what to do, like an Ofgem or Ofcom—and saying, “How are we going to behave and how are we going to do it?” You need the rules, but you also need codes and systems involving data and support.”
“The private ways would be through the courts, but that has evolved in relation to the alternative dispute resolution ombudsmen being the best model at the moment and an integration between the tribunal and ombudsman, which is on the cards and may well occur. However, that is not enough because enforcement does not affect behaviour as such. We like to think that it does, but it is a myth, and there is an enormous amount of psychology and evidence published showing that it is not enough. Therefore, if one stands back and says, “How do we get an effective regulatory system?”, it is about how one does it.”
“First, one historically gave specific regulatory bodies certain remits that turned out to be not wide enough, and there were not enough people involved in the conversation; they were not regulated or contributing to good behaviour. Secondly, the traditional way within which regulation is thought of, in the way that Parliament works, is that you make a number of requirements, rules and procedures. You then identify breaches of those rules and requirements and you then enforce. You can do that through traditionally public or private ways. Public ways in the property sector would be through trading standards authorities or environmental health locally, not a national regulator, as such.”
“Okay, so more generally then, on regulators—Ofgem on energy prices and Ofwat on sewage and water—that approach seems not to provide the outcomes that perhaps were originally indicated when the legislation was passed. What are your thoughts about the political use of regulation? Is there anything from those general principles that you think might apply here? Professor Hodges: I sat on Lord Best’s RoPA—regulation of property agents—working group, and there was strong consensus around the room that you need regulation of agents. Since then, how we do regulation has evolved. Regulation, in the broadest sense, is an all-encompassing idea, and looking at the problems with Ofgem, Ofwat and so on, there are two aspects that strike me.”