Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for this important debate, and the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) for so ably setting out the issues that our constituents face.

Dartford, perhaps unlike many city centre constituencies, is not necessarily somewhere that would be associated with high levels of building safety problems, but we continue to see issues, including new and previously unidentified ones. The key point I want to make is about the length of time it continues to take to resolve these issues. When I was first elected in 2024, I was contacted by residents of a set of four blocks at Ingress Park in Greenhithe who had a long-standing fire safety issue, first identified as far back as 2019, when it was found that flats had combustible material in the balconies and inadequate firebreaks. Frighteningly for residents, there was even a fire on the site in 2023, which left four people injured, bringing home the need to get the building sorted.

I have supported residents over the last two years, bringing together the developer and the managing agents to try to overcome the various obstacles to getting the works done. It was honestly with a sense of relief that I visited the buildings last week to see that the work was finally under way, with an end in sight to the cost and uncertainty with which residents had been living. From today’s contributions and the conversations I have had with other MPs, I think this case is indicative of how these cases can drag on for years, even when the developer has identified the need for remediation works and agreed to fund them.

The second issue that I want to raise is that I am fairly astonished by the fact that we are still continuing to discover new issues. Partly, that is due to the now well publicised issues with fire safety surveys undertaken by, as the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) and others have mentioned, Tri Fire and Adam Kiziak, who was expelled by the Institution of Fire Engineers. One instance that brings home to me the seriousness of this is Heron Court in Ebbsfleet in my constituency, where residents have recently had a waking watch imposed upon them by managing agents FirstPort, who obviously receive much attention in this place, and who once again have taken action without the agreement of the residents or builders.

Two of the four blocks at Heron Court are very slightly over 11 metres in height, and therefore in scope of the Building Safety Act. In this instance, there is a dispute between FirstPort, the managing agents, and Taylor Wimpey, the developer, about the fire safety report that has been undertaken, with one party not happy with it. Negotiations on access for a further inspection have been ongoing since the start of the year to try to clarify what work needs to be undertaken, which has left the building’s leaseholders facing a bill for the 24-hour waking watch, while having no levers to bring the other parties together to move the issue forward.

I have asked to meet FirstPort and the developer in the coming weeks to try to find a way forward and seek assurances that leaseholders will not be hit with the costs of the waking watch. Particularly surprising is that some of the new issues occurring are, I think, in buildings built well after the terrible events at Grenfell in 2017, when lessons should really have been learned, so I hope that when the Minister responds—I welcome her to her place—she will be able to confirm that it remains the case that leaseholders should not be bearing the costs of these waking watches.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Local Government Reorganisation

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

There have been lots of different views about reorganisation in my constituency, but one thing everybody is fully agreed on is that Kent county council is a failing organisation. It is too big to be effective, and it consistently lets down residents right across the county. It is critical that we get this right because it is residents who live with the results. While the pause is under way, how can we ensure that momentum is not lost in improving local services and ensuring that Kent and its different communities start to receive decent services? For instance, in my case, I am disappointed that we have lost the Thames Estuary growth board. How can we ensure that we will get the structures and powers we need to succeed and thrive?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to recognise the work that has been done already. We want to work at pace to review the programme, and we will report back to Parliament at the earliest opportunity. Hopefully, the work that has been under way is already paying dividends for those areas. I do understand the frustration, but I ask Members who have worked well in bringing these proposals forward to bear with me as I review this and take us forward at pace.

Park Home Owners

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[James Naish]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I will talk later about the different reasons that have been given for the 10% commission, which demonstrate in and of themselves that nobody is sure what it is for. It is a hangover from a past era.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate and to the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I have had the pleasure of visiting Stonehill Woods Park in my constituency, a wonderful park homes community where I heard residents’ huge frustrations about the regulation of park homes, particularly the 10% sales commission. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should look carefully at all the evidence provided as part of the consultation, and at whether the 10% commission can be reduced or scrapped entirely?

[James Naish]

I trust that the Minister and his team will do exactly that. This is not just about the 10% sales commission; there are broader issues impacting park home residents. I will come on to those matters shortly.

Let me say two important things. First, mobile homes can be a very good housing option. They typically offer people a smaller, more manageable home in an attractive, close-knit community. The quality of mobile homes has improved considerably over recent years; the sites are often now home to a diverse mix of individuals and families, just like any other location.

Secondly, and critically, for most people park homes are not a second home or a luxury purchase; they are their only home. They therefore represent security, independence and a lifetime of savings, just like the bricks-and-mortar properties that most of us inhabit. That is precisely why protections for mobile home owners matter. We are talking about 160,000 ordinary people living ordinary lives in 100,000 increasingly ordinary properties, but they are underpinned by out-of-date legislation and perceptions. Rightly, the Government are looking at major commonhold, leasehold and fleecehold reforms to end the feudal leasehold system and the injustice of unfair maintenance costs, but as part of those wider changes, park and mobile home owners must not be forgotten. I hope that today’s debate will make sure that they are not.

On mobile homes, MPs from parties of all colours have talked over the years about mis-selling, poor maintenance, weak enforcement, opaque utility charges, disputes over pitch fees, sale blocking and the 10% commission charge when a home is sold. Most concerningly, MPs have often alluded to the imbalance of power between mobile home residents and site owners.

Commonhold and Leasehold Reform

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I echo my hon. Friend’s remarks about the NLC. I also thank others, such as the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, Sir Peter Bottomley, who has now left this place, and other champions, including my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), who has stood up for leaseholders so vocally over many years. The rationale for the ground rent approach that we have chosen is set out in a policy paper that we published this morning. The Select Committee will be able to scrutinise the draft Bill and provide suggestions—that is the whole point of the pre-legislative scrutiny process.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

I welcome the statement and the Minister’s great work. Leaseholders and freeholders across my constituency, in places like Greenhithe, Ebbsfleet and Stone, will hugely welcome the cap on ground rents and the rest of the detail on the draft Bill. May I impress on the Minister the need for us to go further on supporting those who live on unadopted or freehold estates, and to address poor practices by managing agents?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am acutely aware of the strength of feeling on freehold estates. It cannot be an either/or when it comes to ensuring that residential freeholders and leaseholders get the rights and protections that they need. I can assure my hon. Friend that we are taking concerted action on both fronts.

Planning Reform

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

It is wrong to say that this is an area that we are overlooking. I refer the hon. Member to a working paper that sets out a series of proposals to get build-out transparency and accountability up. A delayed homes penalty, for instance, would act as a charge when development could be coming forward but is not. Those proposals are distinct from today’s draft framework, which does not deal with that issue, but I can assure him that it is very much a priority for me and for the Department.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. In my constituency, many new homes have been built in places such as Ebbsfleet and Stone, and I am glad to announce that there are plans for many more, but it is fair to say that local infrastructure—including GP surgeries, Darent Valley hospital and local schools—has struggled to keep pace, and there have not been enough affordable homes. Can the Minister outline how new, clear policies on where and how we build will ensure that development is sustainable and linked to jobs and infrastructure, and that we have enough affordable homes?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I have visited the developments in my hon. Friend’s constituency that Ebbsfleet development corporation is taking forward. As I said in response to an earlier question, we as a Government are clear that new housing must be supported by appropriate infrastructure and amenities. Last year we made important changes to the framework to strengthen the provision of community infrastructure, and, as I have said, the draft framework consolidates and strengthens the support given to that provision, including public services. However, we know that there is more to do to ensure that the right infrastructure comes forward at the appropriate time, alongside the building of new homes.

Electoral Resilience

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

It will be for Philip Rycroft to publish his review in the way that he sees fit, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The sentencing of Nathan Gill for bribery, alongside other recent cases, has exposed vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the UK’s political and electoral systems. The review will give us the opportunity to check that our safeguards are sufficiently robust given the evolving nature of the threat.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

May I, like others, thank the Secretary of State for his robust defence of elections and our democracy through his statement? On the Gill case, he may be aware that the Reform UK board member Gawain Towler is on record saying that he realised very quickly that Nathan Gill was raising pro-Russia questions about Ukraine in 2018. After confronting Gill, Towler simply

“accepted his explanation at face value”

and was, by his own admission, “foolish”. Does the Secretary of State agree that it cannot be good enough for any political party to simply accept the peddling of pro-Russian propaganda? Can he assure me that this review will examine all and every link with Russia without fear or favour?

[Steve Reed]

The review will absolutely operate without fear or favour. It will involve an in-depth assessment of the current financial and bribery-related rules and safeguards that regulate all political parties and political finance so that we can ensure our democracy remains safe in the decades to come.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

As I made clear in answer to a previous question, strong protections in national planning policy mean that development that could be vulnerable to flooding should not be allowed in areas of high flood risk. Where local planning authorities have approved development in spite of initial objections—for example, from the Environment Agency—they will have had to ensure that the development would be safe through, for example, adequate mitigations.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister of State for Housing and Planning for visiting Ebbsfleet Garden City in my constituency last week. Does the Minister agree that, with an additional 10,000 homes to be built in Ebbsfleet over the next 10 years, to create great places to live we have got to build schools, medical facilities and green spaces—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. That is enough.

Property Service Charges

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

I welcome this debate warmly. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) for securing it, and for her excellent speech introducing it, and to other Members for their great contributions.

Property service charges, whether for freeholders who have purchased homes on unadopted new build estates or for leaseholders living in flats, are a huge concern to residents across Dartford. It is no exaggeration to say that the charges are causing misery to my constituents. Home to Ebbsfleet Garden City, Ingress Park in Greenhithe and the Bridge estate near Dartford, the constituency that I am proud to represent has among the highest number of leaseholders and freeholders paying property service charges of any in the country.

As others have, I have surveyed my residents on managing agents and costs, and it is fair to say in summary that residents are bemused by what seems to be the lack of a framework for assessing what reasonable service charges should cover. Long-term trends in rising building insurance costs and energy prices and opaque charging practices by managing agents have created a toxic mix for residents. As if that was not enough, long after buying their new properties, residents have been shocked to receive demands for three to five years-worth of backdated service charges. In some cases, they even predate their ownership of the property, or apply soon after they bought the property, and the bills often contain immediate demands for repayment, despite coming years after people started occupying their home.

Another incredibly frustrating issue for residents, which the Minister might be able to pick up directly with developers, is lack of transparency for buyers regarding the service charges they should expect to pay. One constituent ended up £4,000 in debt, as he was being charged for the maintenance of the estate around his house—on which construction had not even been completed.

Much of the area around new build estates in my constituency remains unadopted by the local authority, an issue that we discussed earlier this year in a Westminster Hall debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern). There is a huge sense of unease and unfairness among residents living on those unadopted estates. They are paying full council tax in addition to hefty service charges. They are paying for the local authority to maintain roads and parks in other parts of the area, but not those on the estate on which they live. I warmly welcomed the Minister’s response in that debate, in which he confirmed that it remained a commitment to end the injustice of so-called fleecehold estates, and I hope we can have an update on that at the end of this debate.

I am grateful to have been among more than 100 Government Members who have, since November 2024, banded together to hold to account managing agents, including FirstPort and RMG. We will not let managing agents off the hook for the extremely poor service that they deliver to our residents. We need a road map from the Government on how unadopted roads and estates will be taken on by the local authority.

Finally, perhaps the Minister might could remind house builders that their choices of managing agents for new developments will cause them long-term reputational damage if they continue to select companies that simply are not up to the job. Let us get this right on behalf of freeholders and leaseholders across the country.

Indefinite Leave to Remain

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy, and to speak as the Member of Parliament for Rushcliffe, which is proudly home to more than 2,000 Hongkongers who have arrived under the BNO visa scheme. That is what I would like to focus on today.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) for opening the debate. I also welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris) to his place as Minister of State at the Home Office, and thank him for joining us on his first working day in office.

I am here this afternoon to make a simple, principled case. The five-year pathway to settlement for BNO Hongkongers must be retained. This is about trust as much as law—about keeping our promises and the faith of the people who place their future in our hands.

The BNO visa route was created as a humanitarian lifeline in response to Beijing’s horrific national security law. The route is grounded in our legal, moral and historical responsibilities under the Sino-British joint declaration. It is not an economic channel, but a bespoke, safe and legal route for British nationals and their relatives fleeing repression in a former British territory where the rule of law and human rights have been ruthlessly eroded. That is why there has been rare, enduring cross-party support for the scheme since day one, and why any attempt to move the goalposts now would cut against the very reason the route exists.

Hongkongers uprooted their families on the explicit promise of a five-year pathway to indefinite leave to remain, plus one year to citizenship. To lengthen the timeline mid-journey would be seen as a breach of trust and would shake confidence in the UK’s credibility far beyond the BNO community. The numbers tell their own story, with almost 200,000 BNO Hongkongers now living in the UK. Crucially, the overwhelming majority came in the first two years after launch, and BNO grants now account for about 1% of total visas. We must appreciate that today’s debate is not about headline immigration numbers but about the welfare of a community that is already here. In Rushcliffe, as I mentioned, more than 2,000 Hongkongers are already on their five-year pathway to ILR. The impact will be on them.

Shifting the rules would hand Beijing and its regime in Hong Kong a propaganda gift: “You trusted Britain, yet Britain broke the deal.” We cannot allow that narrative to stand, which is why the Government must keep their promises. Extending settlement to 10 years would force a decade-long wait for home fee status for BNO students, pricing out the vast majority of BNOs currently studying for their A-levels at schools in my constituency from starting university until their mid-20s. It would also delay access to an estimated £3 billion in Hong Kong pension savings that can be released only once ILR is granted.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent case on what those with BNO visas are being put through by this White Paper and the proposed legislation. In Dartford, I have been contacted by a large number of people on skilled visas who are in a very similar situation. Does he agree that, whatever the situation—whether people are on BNO or skilled visas—and whatever may happen with this legislation, they have come to the UK to contribute to our economy and society, and that the least we should offer is clarity on what they can expect from us, as well as fairness in not changing the terms on which they were accepted here in the first place?

[James Naish]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The consensus here is that we need to determine whether we as a country support the uncertainty of moving the goalposts, and I sincerely hope the Minister is listening to the sentiment in the room.

Because many BNOs lack consular protection and cannot safely renew travel documents, a longer route would also trap families. People would be separated, unable to travel for study, work or to see relatives abroad. To extend the pathway to 10 years would not be an act of administrative tidying; it would be a material downgrading of hundreds of thousands of British Hongkongers’ lives across the UK.

Meanwhile, the community is contributing civically and economically. Hongkongers are working, studying, volunteering, starting businesses and even serving in local government as councillors. They are precisely the neighbours and colleagues that we and my constituents in Rushcliffe want to keep. Many of them are also concerned about some of the broader immigration issues that have been referenced.

The five-year route was designed so that Hongkongers could put down roots quickly and securely. Extending the clock would defer integration, depress opportunity and waste potential. I therefore close by echoing the words of the tens of thousands of UK Hongkongers who will be watching this debate at home. I want to keep standing with Hong Kong. I want to keep our promise to Hongkongers. I want to keep the five-year route. That is how we honour our word: we support a thriving community that has so much to offer our nation. That is how we can show the world that, when Britain gives its word, it keeps it.

Unadopted Estates and Roads

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alistair Strathern]

Absolutely. The certainty and fairness my hon. Friend calls for is the bare minimum we should expect for our constituents and the bare minimum that families should have when moving into a new property, often one they have saved up for over a long time to take that big, exciting step. I know his constituents will be all the better for the work he has done to champion that, but it should not fall to him and other hon. Members to fight for this. It should be a matter of course for new developments.

That inequity I was talking about is a real challenge. Not only is it unfair that lots of our constituents are having to pay hundreds of pounds—and often much more than that—each year for services that others receive as standard, but the very nature of fleecehold is designed to structurally inflate some of those costs. Those management companies are very rarely accountable to the actual residents of these new estates that they in theory provide services for. As a result, there is no incentive for them to keep costs low; I have had examples of people having to pay more than £250 per household just to fix a single lightbulb on the estate. Constituents are individually on the hook for thousands of pounds across the estate as a result of road challenges, and there are many more examples of no real pressure or accountability for the costs residents have to pay.

Alongside that, the complicated legal nature of those structures, the professional fees involved, and the fact that certain estates can be subdivided into tiny blocks or pockets of five homes—each of which has to have its own management company and therefore has to pay for all those professional services over and over again—mean that a large chunk of those fees often does not go towards any service at all. It simply covers professional fees, auditing costs, and wider costs associated with a structure that is by its very essence deeply inefficient and not set up to provide a service to the residents who rely on it.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and thank him for his powerful speech about the iniquity of the current situation. From talking to residents of Ebbsfleet Garden City in my constituency, I know there is growing frustration because they are paying council tax to management companies as well as service charges, with very little clarity, as he says, about what are often very high fees. Does he agree that we need clearer guidelines on timescales and standards for roads and communal areas to be adopted by local authorities, so that residents in places such as Ebbsfleet and other communities mentioned can have certainty about what they are paying for and to whom?

[Alistair Strathern]

I know my hon. Friend is a tireless champion of his constituents who are impacted by this issue. He is spot on: this fleecehold stealth tax—because it is in essence a stealth tax our constituents are being asked to pay—is not just unfair to residents, but means they are all too often ultimately reliant on management companies to provide a service that they rarely receive. Not only are they having to pay more than those in adopted estates, but they often get a worse service, because there is no transparency or accountability around the management companies taking on those practices.

It is not just a cost issue for my constituents or many like them. There are other big non-financial costs associated with fleecehold. Far too many estates have had to band together and sink countless hours into holding management companies to account to get transparency over works, to ensure that very basic works and maintenance are carried out, and to make sure that things we all take for granted—such as safety inspections on play parks—actually take place. My constituents have had to sink days and days of their time into fighting for the bare minimum.

Alongside the very fragmented legal nature of those entities, they can also put my constituents at risk at crucial moments. I spoke to constituents whose house sales have nearly fallen through—one actually did—because the management company in question failed to provide the management pack in a timely fashion. That meant that during conveyancing they were unable to complete the sale and move to the dream property they had been looking forward to and needed to move to for their jobs.

I spoke to another constituent whose credit score was decimated when, after missing a payment by just a couple of weeks, their management company enacted some of its powers under the contract to go straight to the mortgage company, add the balance to the mortgage and extract the fee that way, with all the impact one would expect that to have on the homeowner’s credit score and sense of security.