Matthew Pennycook
MP for Greenwich and Woolwich · Labour · United Kingdom
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Siobhain. I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) on securing this debate.”
“I will address the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s specific question in due course. Before I do so, I want to put on the record the policy in relation to villages. He can rest assured that I will address the point; if he is unsatisfied, he is more than welcome to intervene again. A number of hon. Members mentioned villages.”
“I will say two things in respect to that, and I will come on to detail how the approach works in relation to decision making very shortly. In general terms, developers can make whatever claims they like about any particular site across the country; it is for the local authority to assess whether, in its view, that site constitutes grey be…”
“and learned Gentleman’s point about what is likely to constitute grey-belt land. Let me directly address his other two specific points. Is this a significant policy? Absolutely, and it has been judged as much by the Office for Budget Responsibility and other external commentators. Is it deliberate? Absolutely. We want, as the right hon.”
“Where authorities may wish to restrict development in villages for other reasons, a range of tools are available, such as conservation areas or normal development management policies. On the right hon.”
“We have to put in place policies that, through the decision-making route, allow homes still to be brought forward in that interregnum, but then we have to push heavily to drive towards universal plan coverage. At that point, the protections are in place.”
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“In particular, I thank the leaseholders and residential freeholders who have resolutely refused to accept the inequities of the flawed system they are so often at the mercy of, and who have taken it on themselves to vigorously make the case for change. In responding to the debate, I do not intend to revisit yesterday’s many principled arguments and exchanges on leasehold reform in general. Instead, I will simply provide some further detailed thoughts on some of the specific issues that have been raised this afternoon, starting with the management of private and mixed-tenure estates. The distinct set of problems faced by residential freeholders on those estates with charges and fees is well known and well understood.”
“Although I disagree with his assertion in yesterday’s debate that that Bill is our one chance to end the arcane and discriminatory practices that leaseholders and residential freeholders are at the mercy of, it certainly represents our only chance to do so in this Parliament. On the Labour Benches, we wholeheartedly agree that the Government should go further than the Bill does. I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. Those contributions, like yesterday’s debate, highlight that there is widespread support across the House for ambitious leasehold and commonhold reform. Once again, I want to put on record the thanks of those on the Labour Benches to all those who have campaigned tirelessly, often over many decades, for an overhaul of leasehold law.”
“It is an absolute pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Harris, and to follow the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson). I am very glad that she mentioned the question of a share of freehold: we pushed for that in Committee, and it is one of several measures necessary to pave the way for the commonhold future that so many of us in the House want to see. I congratulate the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) on securing this important debate, on opening it as compellingly as he did and on the persuasive argument he made yesterday on Report on the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill. He spoke in support of greater ambition in addressing the many inequities of the leasehold system.”
“However, can I press on him again, as I did on forfeiture, the need to share any detailed proposals with the House at the earliest possible stage, particularly given the implications of the range of options consulted on for the Bill that has now been sent to the other place? It will, as the Minister knows, involve the rewriting of several substantive clauses in the Bill, so we need that detail early on. I look forward to his response.”
“As I have previously made clear, I personally share the Secretary of State’s preference to cap ground rent at a peppercorn. Although we do not discount the risks involved in any of the five options outlined in the recent Government consultation, Labour is clear that the Government must act to protect leaseholders from ground rent exploitation, and that, as I said in Committee, they should be courageous in determining which of the consultation proposals should be enacted. The Minister made it clear in yesterday’s debate that the Government are considering next steps and were moving at speed in doing so. I will not press him this afternoon for any further detail, as I accept he will not be able to say any more today.”
“Before I conclude, I will touch briefly on ground rents, which the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford mentioned. As Labour argued in Committee, over the past two decades, we have seen a system develop that is increasingly focused on generating assets by gouging leaseholders through ground rents that are, in historical terms, high to start with, and that escalate over the term of the lease. Leaseholders who have worked hard to purchase their homes in good faith are being asked to pay ever more money for no clear service in return, and many are experiencing considerable financial distress and difficulty selling their property, all to sustain the income streams of third-party investors. Unregulated ground rents of this nature in existing leases cannot be justified in our view.”
“As the Minister considers the matter of forfeiture, can I also press him to review the issue of rent charges? I am glad that the Father of the House and, I think, the hon. Member for Harborough mentioned it in their contributions. We must ensure there are no unintended consequences, but in our view there is a cast-iron case for abolishing section 121 of the Law of Property Act 1925 altogether. The remedies provided for by the Act, which amount, in essence, to freehold forfeiture, are a wholly disproportionate and draconian legacy of Victorian-era property law. Through clause 83 of the Bill, the Government are seeking to make palatable methods of enforcing legitimate and reasonable rent charges that are simply not justifiable in any form, and must be removed. I urge the Minister to reconsider the Government’s position on rent charges.”
“Although Labour is understandably disappointed that the Government resisted our second attempt to achieve that, we welcome the Minister making it clear that the Government are “working through the detail of the issue” —[ Official Report , 27 February 2024; Vol. 746, c. 197.] and intend to report back to the House shortly. Can I encourage the Minister to do so as quickly as possible, and to provide us with assurances to that effect today? Determining precisely what, if anything, the House will put in place of the existing system of forfeiture is an extremely complicated undertaking. Given that the Government have had years to develop considered proposals in this area, it would be unfortunate if hon. Members were asked to take a view on complex and technical proposals without the time necessary to properly scrutinise them.”
“As I argued in the debate yesterday, forfeiture is a wholly disproportionate and horrifically draconian mechanism for ensuring compliance with a lease agreement. Its continued use, and the chilling effect that results from its mere existence, continues to put landlords in a nearly unassailable position of strength in disputes with leaseholders. That is why it is routinely used by landlords as a first resort when seeking to recover alleged arrears of payments from leaseholders, and why the threat of it is invoked so often to deter leaseholders from disputing any unreasonable costs and defending claims. Yesterday’s debate reinforced the fact that there is clearly a broad consensus in the House for getting rid of forfeiture.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I was starting to get troubled when I could not see him out of the corner of my eye; I am glad he has attended the debate and made that point. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will know Labour’s position: our concern is that the Bill does not go far enough by any means. It is distinctly unambitious. However, it does make important changes, and we think it is important that it receives Royal Assent before the end of the Parliament. For the reasons he outlined, we want to see it make speedy progress. Let me turn to the issue of forfeiture, which the hon. Member for Harborough raised in his speech. As hon. Members will know, throughout the passage of the Bill, Labour has made the principled case for abolishing forfeiture and the windfall it provides to freeholders.”
“I am afraid that I am going to have to disappoint the Minister, because I disagree that the Government banned new leasehold houses yesterday. He did not address this in his wind-up speech yesterday, because he did not have a huge amount of time, but I want him to respond to my concerns about new schedule 2 providing for exemptions that are potentially so wide that they could allow for the creation of significant numbers of new leasehold homes over the coming years. Will the Government review their position on new schedule 2? Are they convinced that it provides for only very limited exceptions in unusual circumstances, as the Minister said yesterday?”
“We agree; we are not suggesting that we bind the hands of Ministers by prescribing the rate or rates on the face of the Bill, but we do believe that the legislation should be amended to place a clear obligation on the Secretary of State to set a rate or rates with the overriding objective of encouraging leaseholders to acquire their freehold at the lowest possible cost.”
“However, with the applicable deferment rate becoming the primary driver of price to be paid in enfranchisement or extension claims under the new method, as a result of the abolition of marriage and hope value and the peppercorning of ground rents in the valuation calculation, we believe it is essential that it is set in a way that is fair to leaseholders. While the Government ostensibly agree, there is nothing on the face of the Bill to ensure that that will be the case and we therefore remain convinced that this Government, or a future one, could be lobbied by vested interests to set a deferment rate that will be punitive to leaseholders. In resisting our efforts to amend the Bill in Committee to guard against such an outcome, the Minister argued that the Secretary of State must have flexibility to make decisions on the rate or rates.”
“However, we believe that several provisions in this part are defective. We sought to remedy their deficiencies in Committee and we have tabled a number of amendments in an attempt to do so again. Amendments 4 and 5 concern arguably the most significant provisions in this part when it comes to ensuring that the process of extending a lease or acquiring a freehold is as cheap as possible for existing leaseholders—namely the proposed new valuation process as provided for in clauses 9 to 11 and schedules 2 and 3. The current valuation method has a number of manifest flaws, and we fully support the new method as proposed in the Bill.”
“That means rectifying the Bill’s remaining flaws and incorporating into it a select number of measures to further empower leaseholders and improve their rights. With that objective in mind, we have tabled a series of amendments and new clauses for consideration today. That they are almost identical to a number of those we discussed at length in Committee is a deliberate choice that reflects not only the importance we place on the changes they seek to secure, but the distinct lack of convincing responses from the Minister in Committee as to why the Government felt they needed to resist them. Part 1 of the Bill concerns leasehold enfranchisement and extension. In seeking to implement the small subset of reasonable and proportionate Law Commission recommendations, it is almost entirely uncontentious.”
“Whether this Bill receives Royal Assent or not before this Parliament is dissolved, a Labour Government will have to finish the job of finally bringing the leasehold system to an end by overhauling it to the lasting benefit of leaseholders and reinvigorating commonhold to such an extent that it will ultimately become the default and render leasehold obsolete. I reassure leaseholders across the country that we are absolutely determined to do so. We recognise, however, that this limited Bill will provide a degree of relief to leasehold and freehold homeowners in England and Wales by giving them some greater rights, powers and protections over their homes. For that reason, we are extremely pleased it will complete its passage today, but we are determined to send to the other place the most robust piece of legislation that we can.”
“They had the opportunity to bring forward bold leasehold and commonhold reform legislation, and they made a political decision not to do so. Although the Opposition appreciate the understandable desire of many leaseholders to see this Bill completely revamped so that it lives up to the many weighty promises made by the Government since 2017, we made clear at the outset in Committee that we did not intend to try to persuade Ministers to radically overhaul it by means of the many hundreds of amendments that would be required to implement all the Law Commission’s recommendations on enfranchisement, right to manage and commonhold. That remains our position.”
“Despite reams of Government amendments tabled in Committee and for our consideration today, this Bill remains a distinctly unambitious piece of legislation. That is a matter of deep regret to those on the Labour Benches, not only because the Government’s paucity of ambition will see exploited leaseholders wait even longer for the current iniquitous leasehold system to be ended, but because it is also manifestly clear that there is widespread support across the House to go much further than this limited Bill does. Responsibility for the fact that the Bill does not contain so many of the commitments that successive Conservative Secretaries of State have made over recent years, not least in relation to the promised widespread introduction of the commonhold tenure, ultimately lies with Ministers.”
“I start by declaring an interest: my wife is the joint chief executive of the Law Commission, whose work in this area I intend to reference in my remarks. I rise to speak to the amendments and new clauses that stand in my name. Before doing so, I would like to put on record my thanks to all those hon. Members who served on the Public Bill Committee for so ably scrutinising the many technical and complex provisions that the Bill contains. There were, as one would expect, differences of opinion and emphasis, but it was also evident that there is a shared recognition that the Bill can and should be improved further, and an unusual degree of cross-party agreement as to some of the ways that might be achieved.”
“Although I am increasingly personally of the view that there is a growing case—one that is reinforced by the treatment of shared ownership in the Bill—for primary legislation to address various issues arising from shared ownership as a tenure, Government amendments 24 and 29, which relate to it, are not contentious and we support them.”
“In doing so, I feel I must put on record once again the Opposition’s intense frustration at this Government’s continued practice of significantly amending legislation as it progresses through the House. The sheer volume and complexity of amendments that this Government now routinely table to their own legislation represents a departure from established practice and one that acts as a serious impediment to hon. Members effectively scrutinising legislation, and increases the risk that Acts of Parliament contain errors that subsequently need to be remedied. The Government amendments that have been tabled for consideration today fall into three broad categories—namely, shared ownership, building safety and new leasehold houses. I will take each in turn, starting with shared ownership.”
“There must be effective means of ensuring compliance with a lease agreement, and we are more than willing to work constructively with the Government to determine what alternative arrangements are needed to deal with breaches of covenant or unpaid arrears. But forfeiture operates to the prejudice of leaseholders; it cannot be justified, and we must use the Bill finally to do away with it. We believe there is broad consensus across the House for grasping the nettle and abolishing forfeiture, and new clause 5 would do so, and—notwithstanding the very positive noises that we heard from the Minister—I urge hon. Members from across the House to support it. Finally, let me turn to the 100 Government amendments to the Bill that were tabled last week, 29 of which were submitted just before the deadline on Thursday.”
“As we argued in Committee, forfeiture is a wholly disproportionate and horrifically draconian mechanism for ensuring compliance with a lease agreement. Over the course of nearly a century, this House has taken intermittent steps to tighten the laws of forfeiture, yet its continued use and the chilling effect that results from its mere existence continues to put landlords in a nearly unassailable position of strength in disputes with leaseholders. The Opposition are not suggesting for a moment that this House abolishes the right of forfeiture in relation to residential long leases and replaces it with nothing.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, we want to see a number of other changes made to the Bill to provide leaseholders with better protection in law and to pave the way for a commonhold future. To that end, we have tabled amendments and new clauses to, among other things: abolish the draconian rent charge remedies provided for by section 121 of the Law of Property Act 1925; provide for mandatory residents’ management companies in new blocks of flats; establish a right to manage regime for residential freeholders on private or mixed-use estates; bring forward legislative options to facilitate leaseholders in new blocks of flats being granted an automatic share of freehold; and regulate managing agents. Of particular importance to us is the need to ensure that the Bill abolishes forfeiture and the windfall it provides to freeholders.”
“As we argued in Committee, a far more sensible approach would be to legislate for a general prohibition on claiming litigation costs from leaseholders, and then to provide for a limited number of defined exceptions to that general rule by means of regulations—for example, in cases in which the landlord is a leasehold-owned company, or in which the costs are, in the opinion of the tribunal, reasonably incurred for the benefit of the leaseholders or the proper management of the building. Taken together, amendment 10 and new clause 3 would provide for that approach by leaving out clause 35 and replacing it with a new clause that provides for a general prohibition on claiming legal costs from tenants, and for a power to specify classes of landlord who will be exempted from it. I commend them to the House.”
“Arguably, the most important are amendment 10 and new clause 3, concerning litigation costs. Although we support the aim of scrapping the presumption that leaseholders will pay their freeholders’ legal costs when they have challenged poor practice, we believe that, in merely limiting the ability of landlords to do so, the Government are creating an incentive for freeholders to litigate in a way that is likely to erode the general presumption they are seeking to implement.”
“Denying them that right on the grounds that other leaseholders might advertently or inadvertently disadvantage themselves by using the new right to extinguish only their ground rent strikes us as overly paternalistic and misguided. We remain of the view that there is a strong case for simply deleting the 150-year threshold entirely given that the “remaining years” test that applies is arbitrary and that the most common forms of lease are 90, 99 and 125 years. Amendment 8 would do so, thereby making the new right to replace rent with peppercorn rent available to all existing leaseholders. I commend it to the House. Part 3 of the Bill contains a wide range of measures relating to the regulation of leasehold. We have tabled several amendments designed to strengthen the provisions in it.”
“Secondly, there is a principled argument that we should trust leaseholders to make decisions based on what is right for them and their individual circumstances, rather than denying a broad category of leaseholders a new statutory right on the basis that Ministers know best what is in their interest—a viewpoint that we would have assumed those on the Conservative Benches would support. As I put it to the Minister in Committee, there could be all sorts of reasons why someone with a lease shorter than 150 years might want to buy out only their ground rent, including simply that they are unable to afford the premium required to secure a 990-year lease under clauses 7 and 8.”
“The second argument was that in determining the threshold for restriction, the primary consideration should be which leaseholders are “unlikely to be interested in, or do not need, a lease extension.” –– [ Official Report, Leasehold and Freehold Reform Public Bill Committee, 25 January 2024; c. 271.] We do not believe that either argument is particularly strong. First, any long lease threshold for the new right is ultimately entirely arbitrary, as evidenced by the fact that the Government chose a different threshold from the one recommended by the Law Commission.”
“Even if unamended, they will ensure that some leaseholders can enjoy reduced premiums and secure nominal ground rent ownership of their properties without the need to go through the challenge and expense of repeated lease extensions. However, we remain unconvinced by the Government’s proposed conferral of this new right only on those leaseholders with leases with an unexpired term of more than 150 years. In resisting our attempt to remove the 150-year threshold from the Bill in Committee, the Minister essentially made two arguments. The first was that there is a need to “put a finger on the scale” somewhere. In other words, the Government take the view that the new right must be restricted based on lease length.”
“It contains the four clauses in the Bill that implement Law Commission recommendations on the right to manage, several of which we have sought to improve, as well as clause 21, which makes provision for a new enfranchisement right to extinguish a ground rent without having to extend a lease. We still have absolutely no idea how this clause—or clauses 7 and 8, for that matter—will interact with any proposals that might emerge from the recently closed consultation on restricting ground rents for all existing leases. The Minister must provide further clarification on that; it cannot be right that we could be dealing with such a significant issue when we get to ping-pong stage, in due course. We very much welcome the intent of clause 21 and schedule 7, which it gives effect to.”
“I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, which he made in Committee as well, if I am not mistaken. We very much think the risk is on the other side of the scale—that is, that a Government would be tempted to set a rate that is damaging to leaseholders as a result of being lobbied by vested interests. While there is a balance to be struck, we think it is right that we put on the face of the Bill that the objective in setting the deferment rate as part of the premium calculation must be to ensure that leaseholders acquire their freehold at the lowest possible cost. Amendments 4 and 5 would ensure that that is the case and I commend them to the House. Part 2 of the Bill makes changes to other rights of long leaseholders.”
“We are concerned that it will, in effect, force local authorities to adopt public amenities on new housing estates, irrespective of circumstance, or—if compulsion is not the intent of the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire—would see those amenities degrade and deteriorate as a result of not being maintained by either the private management company or the local authority.”
“The CMA made it clear in that working paper that reducing the prevalence of private management arrangements would require a mix of legislative and policy changes more fundamental than the introduction of regulatory protection, and drew attention to the fact that it would result in a wider set of consequential changes, not least the potential for “significant impact on local authority finances and resources at a time when local authority funding is already stretched.” That is why, while we very much sympathise with its intent of ensuring that residential freeholders on private or mixed-tenure estates are not charged for services that should by right be covered by council tax, we have reservations about amendment 145.”
“Although additional protections of the kind introduced under part 4 will almost certainly still be required, in its “Private management of public amenities on housing estates” working paper, published on 3 November last year, the Competition and Markets Authority stated that “we consider that reducing the prevalence of private management arrangements would be the most direct route to address the root cause of our emerging concerns”.”
“We take no issue with that, and do not intend to pre-empt the regulations by attempting to prescribe a series of requirements on the face of the Bill. However, we believe that, where possible, we should seek to use part 4 not only to provide greater protection to residential freeholders who live on the estates, but to contribute to a reduction in the prevalence of such arrangements—a point that the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire was driving at.”
“There has been a broad consensus across the House for some time that residential freeholders on new build private and mixed-tenure estates require greater rights and protections, and the Government have recognised publicly—for at least six years, by my count—that they need to act to address the range of problems that freeholders face. Labour therefore welcomes the Government’s decision to use the Bill to create an entirely new statutory regime for residential freeholders based on leaseholders’ rights and is fully supportive of the intent behind the provisions in this part of the Bill. Although part 4 sets the broad framework for regulating estate management, much of the detail necessary to bring that framework into force will come via regulations.”
“There is clearly a distinct problem with management fragmentation on many privately owned estates that have been constructed throughout the country in recent years, with residential freeholders even on relatively new estates frequently having to navigate scores of management companies, each levying fees for services in a way that further exacerbates the general lack of transparency and potential for abuse that they face in respect of charges and fees. Underpinning all those issues of concern is a fundamental absence of adequate regulation or oversight of the practices of estate management companies and the fact that residential freeholders currently do not enjoy statutory rights equivalent to those held by leaseholders.”
“For example, as I have said in past debates on the subject in the House, it would appear to be fairly common for residential freeholders not to be notified of their future liability for charges early in the conveyancing process; many learn of their exposure only at the point of completion. Even in instances in which residential freeholders are notified about their future liability in good time, many have to confront the fact that their contracts do not specify limits or caps on charges and fees.”
“Those problems include: excessive or inappropriate charges levied for minimal or even non-existent services; charges imposed for services that should by right be covered by council tax; charges that include costly and arbitrary administration fees; charges hiked without adequate justification; and charges levied when residential freeholders are in the process of selling their property. In addition to a general lack of clarity and transparency about how estate management charges and fees are arrived at and how they break down—these problems are not dissimilar to those experienced by long leaseholders in respect of service charges—residential freeholders on privately owned and managed estates clearly suffer from inadequate transparency in other unique respects.”
“It is a pleasure to continue our line-by-line consideration of the Bill with you in the Chair, Sir Mark. I rise to speak to amendment 150, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale. As we have heard, part 4 of the Bill deals with the regulation of estate management. The hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire provided an extremely comprehensive overview of the problem and its prevalence. The distinct set of problems faced by residential freeholders on private or mixed-tenure estates that part 4 seeks to address is well known and well understood.”
“Under my reading of the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, if it is ensured that services or works that would ordinarily be provided by local authorities are not relevant costs for the purposes of charges in this part, who will pick up the bill? If the local authority is not compelled to adopt the amenities, our concern is that no one will maintain them. To address his point directly, I worry that his amendment would not ensure that the private estate management company picks up the charge. I will come to why I think our amendment is a superior way of addressing this very real problem.”
“Member for North East Bedfordshire outlined, there are some good reasons why local authorities are reluctant to adopt public amenities on private or mixed-tenure estates.”
“We are all driving at the same point. I was very much taken by the CMA’s conclusion that reducing the prevalence of these arrangements requires a combination of the mandatory adoption of amenities and putting in place corresponding common adoptable standards. If we do one without the other, we risk some unintended consequences. My concern about the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire is that we cannot simply remove from estate charges costs that should in an ideal circumstance be borne by local authorities and then expect the private management company to simply pick them up. I fear that the more likely scenario will be that the amenities are not properly maintained. That is a real concern, and should be for residential freeholders on the estates. As the hon.”
“In those circumstances, one can hardly blame the local authority in question for a reluctance to adopt roads and common services that it will have to repair and maintain a great cost. My central argument is that if we are to reduce the prevalence of these arrangements, we must ensure that we introduce a common adoptable standard for public amenities on estates at the same time as we require mandatory adoption, as the CMA advises.”
“We fundamentally disagree on where the logic chain leads. I do not think that, on the basis of the amendment, the developer will be forced to pick up the costs. It is far more likely that they would build below what would be considered a common adoptable standard and then leave residential freeholders to live with substandard amenities. We could debate this further, but that is my take on the hon. Gentleman’s amendment: it would not force the management companies to do that. That is a real concern. As I said, there are a variety of reasons why local authorities often do not take on responsibility. The most common one is that the public amenities on new housing estates are not built to a determined, adoptable standard.”
“Ours is consciously a probing amendment and I hope the Minister will understand and appreciate the problem that it attempts to address, as does the hon. Member’s amendment. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on it.”
“We have tabled amendment 150 in an attempt to challenge the Government to consider how they might utilise the regulatory framework introduced by part 4 to drive up the standards of public amenities on the estates in question—that is the other half of the equation that I think we are all agreed we need. Our amendment would ensure that services or works on private or mixed-tenure estates that are required as a result of defects in construction are not relevant costs for the purposes of estate management. I think that, rather than the amendment of the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire, would be the incentive that developers need to ensure that high standards are in place at the point that they hand the estate over.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention; it is a habit that I hope he continues because I think there is common ground here. When it comes to common adoptable standards, Ministers have often put it to me—the Minister no doubt will; previous Ministers have done—that local authorities have the tools they need to drive up the standards of public amenities that are constructed, but there is clearly something going wrong in that they are not ensuring that those standards are in place. As a consequence—not in every instance, but in many—local authorities have good reason to be reluctant to take them on.”
“Will the Minister expand on why the Government think the common amenable standards are not being met across the board? In a previous debate, the then Minister stated: “The local authority has powers to ensure that developers build and maintain communal facilities to the standards and quality set out in the planning permission.” —[ Official Report, 22 January 2019; Vol. 653, c. 132WH.] Is something going wrong with the standards that most local authorities require at the planning permission stage? Is the section 106 agreement breaking down in some way? What is the reason? That might give us an insight into the solution that the Government have in mind and into why common adoptable standards are not currently the norm.”