Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
Layla Moran
Main Page: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)Department Debates - View all Layla Moran's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(1 day, 7 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Matthew Pennycook
My hon. Friend is right: there will always be vested interests that resist reform of the nature that we are trying to take forward, just as there will always be naysayers out there for whom nothing we do is ever good enough. This package as a whole, as I have said, will end the leasehold system in its entirety and in a single Parliament. That will be a huge achievement for this Government and we will succeed on that basis where other Governments have failed.
I am aware of the specific issue my hon. Friend raises and we have had many discussions about it. The provisions to address it are not in the draft Bill, but my officials and I are giving serious consideration to how and where we will resolve the matter that my hon. Friend has campaigned on for so many years.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I welcome the Bill, but I take this opportunity to urge the Minister to go further and faster on rip-off service charges. That is the thing that is clogging up my inbox—so much so, in fact, that I will hold a service charges forum in Oxford in a few weeks’ time. One group in particular—social housing tenants—is under-protected. The Minister will know that under the 2024 Act, there is more transparency in their service charges, but they do not have anywhere near as strong a hand as others in seeking redress. Will he meet me following the forum so that I can relay to him the issues that my constituents, particularly the social housing tenants, are having?
Matthew Pennycook
I can feel the glare of my private office as I agree to meetings across the House, but I am happy to do so. The matters that the hon. Lady addresses are in the consultation we brought forward last year. It is an incredibly technical consultation on standardising and making more transparent service charges across the country, which are not uniform in any way as things stand. However, as I have said, we want to introduce those protections as soon as possible.