Supporting High Streets

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Olney]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are talking about high streets, but there is a much wider issue across the entire economy about the workforce. If we can get solutions to work for some of these things, they will have a knock-on impact, and many more sectors will see a boost to their economic prospects.

On business rates, which so many of my hon. Friends have raised, the current Government pledged in their manifesto to replace the business rates system, but still no meaningful action has been taken. As we are nearly 18 months into this Government, I wish to ask if they plan to keep their word on that commitment.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way four times in such quick succession. Of the £40 million of business rates levied this year by Surrey Heath borough council, only £1 million has been retained locally. Given that borough councils levy business rates and that businesses have an expectation that the money is retained locally, does my hon. Friend agree with me that it is vital that the money gets put back into the local economy to improve infrastructure and to increase the sense of place? If that cannot be done, perhaps business rates should be scrapped altogether and replaced with a more just way of raising funds.

[Sarah Olney]

My hon. Friend’s local high street in Camberley is very close to my heart, because my first job was in WH Smith there some years ago now. He is absolutely right about business rates, and I repeat my question to the Government: please, what action are you going to be taking on business rates?

Houses in Multiple Occupation: Planning Consent

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Steve Yemm]

I agree that whoever falls foul of planning regulations should be held to account.

Although HMOs have a place, in Mansfield, as in so many proud towns across the country, we have seen what happens when the balance tips too far—when too many family homes are converted too quickly without proper local control or consideration. My constituents know the streets I am talking about in Mansfield Woodhouse, Forest Town, Warsop and parts of my town centre, where once-stable family homes are being turned into short-term lets or high-density HMOs almost overnight. The result is more noise, parking pressures, more rubbish and fly-tipping, higher turnover of residents, less community cohesion, and a growing feeling among residents that they have lost their say on what happens on their own street.

I have spoken to lifelong residents—people like myself who have raised their children and grandchildren in Mansfield—who remember when every family on their street knew every other family by name. In some areas, they now see bins overflowing, cars blocking their pavements and transient visitors who stay for a short while and are not invested in the area.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

We also have the phenomenon of HMO properties in my constituency. If someone were to apply to build a block of six apartments, they would have to go through a proper planning process, with things such as parking being considered. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the licensing regime needs to be significantly tightened to give local authorities the power to think about things such as parking and bin storage prior to an HMO licence being issued?

Property Service Charges

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) for securing this important debate. Across the country, and certainly across my constituency, leaseholders are trapped in a system that too often leaves them feeling powerless. They face spiralling service charges, opaque management practices and little or no accountability from the agents or freeholders who control their lived environments.

In my experience, these problems are particularly acute for elderly and more vulnerable residents, many of whom live in retirement developments and depend on the professionalism of those entrusted with managing their estates. Far too often, what they experience is mismanagement, confusion and financial anxiety. To illustrate the scale of the issue, I want to draw on two cases from my Surrey Heath constituency that encapsulate the national failings: first, Mytchett Heath, a retirement complex managed by Cognatum Estates, a not-for-profit developer and operator based in the south and south-east of England; and secondly, the Courtyard in Camberley, a residential building currently undergoing cladding remediation—in effect, two scandals rolled into one.

At the Courtyard, one of my constituents, Sharon, has seen her annual service charges rise by £1,394 between 2017 and 2025, and has paid a total of £22,727 over that period on top of council tax. In 2021 alone, her bill rose by 38% with no clear explanation. When she sought answers from Pinnacle Property Management, the managing agent, the responses were slow, incomplete and unhelpful. She has been left anxious, powerless and deeply mistrustful of those managing her building.

At Mytchett Heath, residents face an equally troubling pattern, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) for supporting me in my investigations of the organisation. Maintenance costs appear without warning or justification. Worse still, the managing fee at Mytchett Heath—the basic charge that residents pay for estate management—has increased by 75% since 2019, at an average rate of 10.7% per year. As all of us know, that far exceeds inflation, wage growth and pension increases, yet residents have been given no clear explanation of how those rises are justified, nor any transparent breakdown of where their money is going.

There is no effective oversight mechanism for managing agents or freeholders. Although residents can, in theory, appeal to the industry ombudsman, many are deterred from that process because it is too long, too complex and often too costly. What is particularly concerning for my residents at Mytchett Heath is that the managing director of Cognatum Estates, Mr John Lavin, also sits on the board of the Association of Retirement Housing Managers—the very trade body that purports to regulate and uphold standards across the sector. That is a textbook case of marking one’s own homework.

Elderly residents, meanwhile, are left financially trapped, emotionally exhausted and with nowhere to turn. The human cost of all this is immense: stress, anxiety, depleted savings and a complete loss of peace of mind. These are retirees spending their later years poring over spreadsheets and unanswered emails, when they should be enjoying the comfort and security they have worked for.

Back in April, I met the board of Cognatum Estates to hear its side of the story. I was told that some residents were “encouraging others to protest”. In a recent letter from Cognatum’s chief executive officer, I heard that complaints were, in fact, part of a

“co-ordinated campaign to…denigrate the organisation.”

These are not political agitators—I should know, because I have met enough of them—but elderly homeowners who are asking basic questions about the bills they receive. They deserve answers, not accusations.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister three simple questions. When can leaseholders—particularly elderly residents—expect to be able to receive clear, itemised explanations of how their service charges are calculated? Secondly, when managing agents fail to communicate or justify large increases, such as the 70% rise in Mytchett Heath’s managing fee since 2019, what meaningful sanctions might they face? Finally, will the Government review the governance of trade associations such as the Association of Retirement Housing Managers to ensure genuine independence and oversight, rather than industry insiders marking their own homework?

Oral Answers to Questions

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

In 2025-26, Surrey Heath businesses will contribute more than £30 million in business rates to Surrey borough council, but because of central Government tariffing, only 2.5% of those business rates will be retained locally. There is a reasonable expectation that locally raised taxes should remain local, so with local government reorganisation on its way, could the Secretary of State and the Front Bench team reassure Surrey Heath businesses that they might have a chance of retaining more of those business rates that should be invested back into our high streets?

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the changes we have made to ensure that there are discounts on business rates for certain businesses this year, with further commitments to come at the Budget. He makes the right point. Of course I cannot announce that outside the Budget, but we will consider those points carefully.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gideon Amos]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to draw attention to the thousands of homes that have planning permission and have not been built, including the 11,000 we have in Somerset. While I welcome what the Government have said about bringing those forward, a real “use it or lose it” power is missing from the Bill. The Liberal Democrats have tabled new clause 3 so that, unless those homes are built, the local authority would have powers to take over the land and to build the houses. That would ensure a real “use it or lose it” penalty for those that do not build out the permissions that they have.

Pitting communities and nature as the enemies of progress and development would be a massive mistake. Taking power away from councillors is taking it away from local people, and taking power away from Members of Parliament is taking it from the hands of the people who elect us to this place. Both are examples of centralisation and “Whitehall knows best” thinking, in which local views count for little and nature for even less. There is another way to build the hundreds of thousands of homes we need. It is to invest in 150,000 social homes per year to pump-prime our industry, give communities the funding for the jobs, transport, green space and energy infrastructure that our constituents want, build the new GP and healthcare facilities before building the houses and homes our communities will need, and build them in ways that will support rather than harm those communities.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, particularly as it sounds as though he is coming to his conclusion, but I want to give him the best possible chance to talk about new clause 115. My constituency of Surrey Heath is made up of small villages divided by green-belt land and Ministry of Defence property. Without the protections afforded by new clause 115, I fear that the distinctiveness and sense of place of those villages will be gradually lost. Can he comment on how new clause 115 would protect the distinctiveness of place?

[Gideon Amos]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the point he makes. It is vital to protect the character of existing places and communities that are so valued, which is why we want a more locally driven approach to assessing housing numbers and local plan making.

Finally, if we build the GP surgeries, the healthcare and the other infrastructure before the homes, we will be building in the interests of our communities, not against them. That is the kind of community-led development that Liberal Democrats want and that our amendments would help to bring about, and I humbly urge Members to support them.

Housing Development Planning: Water Companies

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

I slightly regret asking my hon Friend to give way at this particular moment, because she has just mentioned 17,000 hours of sewage. As a result of a recent freedom of information request related to my constituency, Thames Water had to reveal to me that it has released sewage into Surrey Heath’s rivers for 543 hours since the general election on 4 July. That is a slightly more modest number than the 17,000 hours my hon Friend’s constituents have faced, but it is none the less hugely significant, given that we have only four sewage outlets in the whole of my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we want new housing built—which we do—then water companies, which we are often very hard on, need to be treated as strategic partners in development, and forced through tougher regulation to deliver the rapidly growing communities we want for all of our residents?

[Jess Brown-Fuller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we are tough on water companies—and so we should be. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire said, they have made large profits and they have a duty to make sure that every single constituent in this country has access to clean and safe water and that it is disposed of appropriately. But I absolutely agree that they should also be included as a strategic partner, and I will come on to that.

Those failures harm our environment, endanger public health and threaten local economies, particularly tourism, which relies on clean water and a thriving natural landscape. In the Government’s plan for change, they set out an ambitious proposal to build 1.5 million homes in England and accelerate planning decisions. While there is no doubt that new homes are needed, they must be accompanied by the appropriate infrastructure to support them. Water companies have a duty to maintain, improve and extend their water supply networks to account for future water needs, but they are currently excluded from the planning process by not being listed as a statutory consultee.

That omission means that, when a development is proposed for a site where there is no capacity, water companies lack the opportunity to formally object or to insist on necessary infrastructure improvements before the permission is granted. The issue is compounded by how capacity in our waste water treatment plants is measured. Instead of assessing the real-world resilience of our waste water infrastructure, capacity is gauged by measuring dry spells over a 12-month period. That means that a company’s capacity can change year on year, depending on the weather. With an ever-changing climate, that is not an accurate measure of the capacity that a site can cope with. It is not a realistic reflection of demand on new developments.

If they were statutory consultees, water companies could highlight those inefficiencies at an earlier stage, ensuring that essential upgrades are planned and delivered before new developments are approved. In Chichester, we are currently dealing with the absence of a proactive water management system; a lack of capacity at a specific waste water treatment works in Apuldram is delaying the regeneration that the city centre so desperately needs.

To address these challenges, we must adopt a more proactive and consistent approach to waste water management. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire mentioned, sustainable drainage systems—otherwise known as SUDS—are a key element of this. I am pleased that Chichester district council has included SUDS as part of its local plan, which is currently being consulted on, but they should not be applied on an authority-by-authority basis; we should have legislation making SUDS the standard across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

16. What steps she is taking to help people impacted by EWS1 fire safety certificates issued by Tri Fire.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

19. If she will take steps to support residents impacted by market disruption due to incorrect building safety documentation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Alex Norris)]

The external wall system 1 form is a tool developed by mortgage lenders to inform valuation, and is not a fire safety certificate. We are working very closely with the industry to encourage them to take a proportional approach to forms issued by Tri Fire. Lenders who have signed the industry planning statement should accept alternative evidence as part of mortgage applications, but if an individual has concerns about the fire safety of their building, they should contact the person responsible for it.

[Alex Norris]

If the building is in one of the Government-backed schemes, such as the cladding safety scheme, the fire risk assessment will have been quality assured by the Government, which will provide assurance. If it is covered by the developer contract, it will have been audited by the Department, so that ought to give cover as well. If neither of those things is the case, I am more than happy to talk to the hon. Lady about how to give residents surety so that they can evidence to lenders that their building is safe.

[Dr Pinkerton]

Hon. Members across the House have raised concerns about the now-expelled fire safety engineer Adam Kiziak, following investigations into alleged signature fraud, including in my constituency of Surrey Heath. From what I understand, a second fire engineer, Adair Lewis, has now disowned a further 20 Tri Fire EWS1 forms that he alleges falsely bear his signature. Will the Secretary of State join me in requesting an urgent police investigation into these fraud allegations? Does she agree that her Department must urgently reassess buildings that have been surveyed by Tri Fire to protect residents from further uncertainty and market disruption?

[Alex Norris]

I stress that the EWS1 form is an industry form rather than a fire safety one. If those buildings are in a Government scheme, any fire risk assessment will have been quality assured. If they are in the developer contract, those schemes have been audited as well, which should give cover. I would not want to speak about individual cases at the Dispatch Box. We believe that the quality of those assessments must be sacrosanct and they must be done in good faith. That is why, as part of our response to the Grenfell inquiry, we have made significant commitments on standards in this area.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that, nearly eight years on from the tragedy of Grenfell, it is completely unacceptable that people are still living in unsafe buildings. I respect and pay tribute to what previous Governments have done. That legislation has enabled authorities to take action, and we have been supporting them in making sure that action is taken. Our remediation acceleration plan will also outline how we can ensure that those responsible for remediating buildings, whether that relates to fire safety or any other defects, are held accountable, so that we can take those actions and get that remediation done as quickly as possible. I do not want it to take another eight years before people are living in safe and secure homes. I expect to do it as quickly as possible, and action is already being taken.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for what she said today and how she said it. I hope that the families of the survivors of Grenfell Tower have heard what she had to say and find some reassurance in the acceptance of all the recommendations. I have residents in my constituency who are trapped in just the latest chapter of the fire safety scandal. These residents have EWS1 forms similarly signed off by the now notorious fire safety engineer Adam Kiziak. They find themselves unable to sell their properties or remortgage. Even more fundamentally, they do not know whether they are living in a dangerous building. Neighbouring buildings, built at exactly the same time and that have been signed off or had their EWS1 forms produced by a different fire safety engineer, have already been stripped of their cladding.

I am incredibly grateful to hear that the Government have accepted recommendations 15 and 16 and that they are looking at a professionalisation of the fire safety industry, greater regulation and a commitment to greater recruitment. We know that those are some of the issues that have underpinned the EWS1 scandal. I urge the Deputy Prime Minister and her team to think about emergency measures. It cannot be right that we just overlook the EWS1 forms that people already have, because people do not know whether they are living in safe buildings. We have to fundamentally and rapidly reassess the safety of those buildings to allow them to be sellable or remediated again.

[Angela Rayner]

I refer back to what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes): I absolutely accept that people should be in safe and secure homes. The Government remediation funds have a robust audit process in place to assess the quality of fire risk assessments of external walls. The audit process ensures that assessments carried out for buildings in our remediation funding programmes meet the appropriate standards. Where those standards are not met, we will take action to ensure that is addressed.

English Devolution and Local Government

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

That legal order was, of course, signed this week. I commend the hon. Gentleman, other Members and the local leaders for working to continue to put Lancashire on the map—of course, Mr Speaker is always part of that as well. We want to see areas such as Lancashire reach their full potential, because that is our growth mission. As the Prime Minister set out, people have to see that growth in their pockets across the whole of England, and that is what our agenda is about. It is about working with local leaders and Members of Parliament to genuinely unleash the growth potential that we have across Lancashire and the whole of England.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for her statement. One of the points of detail in the statement is that Surrey, where my constituency of Surrey Heath is located, is excluded from the devolution priority programme, yet elections in Surrey have been cancelled none the less. My residents face the prospect of having none of the advantages of being in the priority programme and all of the disadvantages of losing their elections. Can the Secretary of State explain to me and my residents why Surrey has been added on as a kind of addendum to the list that she has provided, and why did it not qualify for the priority programme in the first place?

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Member for raising the important issue of the challenges that Surrey faces. That is why we have put Surrey within the priority programme, but we do need a reorganisation first, because it would be a single council, so we would have a single council mayoral area, which is not what the devolution agenda is about. The reorganisation is about recognising the challenges that Surrey faces and working with local leaders to deliver services to local areas. At a later date, we can then look at whether we are able to take that forward, but we do recognise the unique situation that Surrey is in, which is why we have put it in the priority programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Al Pinkerton Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)]

15. What assessment she has made of the potential merits of abolishing residential leaseholds.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

19. What steps she is taking to ensure that not-for-profit freeholders are accountable for their management practices.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

By the end of this Parliament, this Labour Government will have finally brought the feudal leasehold system to an end. On 21 November, I made a detailed written ministerial statement setting out how the Government intend to honour that manifesto commitment, including the steps we will take to implement reforms to the system already in statute.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Pinkerton]

Residents living in Mytchett Heath, a retirement community in my constituency, have reported the regular and repeated withholding of invoices, excessive insurance charges and £107,000-worth of maintenance without any supporting rationale. All of this adds up to a 70% increase in service charges since 2020. What is the Minister doing to ensure that not-for-profit companies such as Cognatum Estates, which is, to be very clear, not a social landlord, are held to account? Will he accede to a meeting with me and residents of Mytchett Heath and other Cognatum leaseholders to understand the challenges and anxieties they face?

[Matthew Pennycook]

In addition to the measures I have set out, we intend to proceed with implementing the service charge transparency provisions of the 2024 Act so that residents in all tenures can more easily challenge unreasonable increases. I think complaints about not-for-profit freeholders can be made to the housing ombudsman. I am more than happy to hear more from the hon. Gentleman about the particular circumstances of this case and give him further advice.