Lord Graham of Edmonton
Main Page: Lord Graham of Edmonton (Labour - Life peer)Housing: Park Homes
Lord Graham of Edmonton Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Scott of Needham Market
My Lords, I am very pleased to have secured this slot for a Short Debate on the problems facing the park homes sector. There has been a flurry of activity in the past couple of years. The Government have concluded their consultation on the future regulation of the sector; the Communities and Local Government Select Committee carried out a full inquiry and produced an excellent report; my Suffolk colleague from the House of Commons, Peter Aldous, has sponsored a Private Member’s Bill on it, which had its Second Reading on Friday; and just last week Consumer Focus published its report into the sector, called Living the Dream?—with an all-important question mark. I am really pleased that such a well respected independent body has carried out research into park homes because their work has confirmed what we knew from a lot of anecdotal evidence. I will not say too much about it because I know we will be hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who is very familiar with the work. We have a very good opportunity this evening to hear from the Minister where government thinking is on this matter.
I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, is with us this evening. He has been such a clarion voice crying out for this sector over many years and I pay tribute to you, Ted, for what you have done.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market
There are more than 2,000 park home sites in this country, predominantly in rural areas, and they house around 160,000 people in 85,000 homes. The residents are almost all approaching or beyond retirement age and many are of modest means. The Consumer Focus report notes that a quarter of these residents are over 75, so many of them are vulnerable. Determined not to be reliant on the state, they have chosen to live in park homes, often using the surplus equity from the sale of their previous home to supplement their pensions.
These dwellings are often called “mobile homes” but this is highly misleading. While they might be technically mobile, they are permanent residences and this is much more than a matter of words. It means that the legal framework that is set out in three main pieces of legislation, predominantly the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960, is entirely the wrong legal framework and woefully out of date.
I first became aware of problems in the sector more than 20 years ago when I was a district councillor and things have not improved. In its submission to the government consultation, the Local Government Association gave examples of site owners who overcrowd the sites, ignore licence conditions, make inadequate provision for drainage and sewerage, and dump rubbish. The current maximum fine is £2,500 and it is often cheaper for the site owner to pay the fine than to do the work. In any event, it costs councils to do the enforcement. In effect, local council tax payers are subsidising this abhorrent behaviour.
The solution proposed by the Local Government Association is that the sector is brought in line with the Housing Act 2004, which would allow for the issuing of improvement notices, prosecution for serious non-compliance, the power to carry out work and re-charge for it, and the registration of enforcement notices as local land charges. The current licence system is often manipulated because responsibility for compliance with site conditions does not necessarily transfer to new owners when sites are sold.
Service charges often bear no relation to the actual expenditure of the site owner on the site but it is difficult for the residents to dispute the bills. Some site owners are levying a VAT rate of 20% on the re-charges for gas and electricity. Many charge what home owners regard as excessive fees for site maintenance that is often not done at all.
It is the growing evidence of serious criminality within the sector that gives most cause for concern. I am indebted to Detective Chief Inspector Colquhoun of the West Mercia Police, who has become a nationally recognised expert in the field. He has successfully prosecuted 74 individuals, who received a total of 64 years in prison. He is personally leading efforts to increase awareness throughout the police force of the ways in which fraud can be perpetrated. The growth of criminality in this sector is a combination of the economics of the industry and the inadequate regulatory framework.
Most park homes are owned by their occupants, who must separately buy the pitch that it is standing on and pay ongoing service charges. A pitch can cost anything from £20,000 to £250,000, so this can be big money. Consumer Focus has shown that only around 1% of purchasers take legal advice before they buy, which is a serious problem. The restrictions on park home owners are so onerous that I imagine it simply would not occur to buyers that such a framework could exist, but it does and they often do not know until it is too late. A park home owner cannot sell their home without the approval of the site owner of the prospective purchaser. The site owner then receives 10% for doing very little. The purchase of the new pitch applies only to the original home. When it is replaced, a new fee has to be paid.
The service charges are peanuts compared to the money that site owners can make from their share of the sale of homes, particularly from buying and selling homes themselves. The abuses vary. Some allow the site to decline to a point where everyone who can leaves and the remaining residents are encouraged to sell their homes at knock-down prices to the site owner, who redevelops the site and sells new pitches at a very high price. Prosecutions have taken place of individuals who have decided to speed up this process by adding intimidation to their ways of encouraging people to leave.
Where owners wish to sell their home, site owners often veto numbers of prospective purchasers until in desperation the seller accepts a very low price from the site owner himself. Site owners have been known to intercept potential buyers at the entrance of the site or to pass on false information about the state of the home. There are examples of site owners visiting local estate agents to tell them that they are wasting their time marketing the homes because any new purchaser will be vetoed.
Site owners have been known to write to residents telling them that their home is defective and they will be evicted if they do not remedy it. Luckily, the ever-caring site owner is there to offer to buy their home from them, at a price far below its real value. Conversely, people who want to improve or refurbish their homes are often told that they need the site owner’s permission and that it will not be forthcoming.
A culture of intimidation and fear has grown up. Consumer Focus reports that one in 10 residents has experienced abusive and threatening behaviour. Many do not go to the police because they are simply too frightened. Let us remember that these are mostly older, often elderly, people. Some residents have organised themselves and have set up groups. We should recognise how much courage it takes to organise in this way because there are reports of serious intimidation against the organisers and members of such groups. The National Park Home Owners Congress held its meeting in Birmingham in the summer and it was attended by more than 4,000 people. It takes real guts to do what they are doing and we should support them not just with warm words but by providing a legislative framework that is fit for purpose.
Mr Aldous’s Bill, which I am very pleased has the support of the Government, will go a long way to creating that, but it is not of itself enough. The Bill is not retrospective and I understand that is because of legal advice that the Human Rights Act could be invoked if there were a retrospective change of contract. However, this leaves the current 160,000 people vulnerable to the sort of abuse I have described, in fact possibly even more vulnerable—I fear that there will be a sort of crime bonanza later on as the rogue operators see their cash cow disappearing. I would like the Government to think again and see whether there is a middle way of introducing this for existing tenants, perhaps a few years down the road, in such a way that does not impinge on the Human Rights Act. Can the Minister also undertake to look at the question of park homes and the Green Deal? Fuel poverty is a real problem in this sector.
Finally, while the Bill will include a fit and proper person test for site owners, it will not be implemented until it is deemed necessary later. Will the Minister accept that all the work I have referred to earlier has demonstrated that there is ample evidence of the need for such a test now? It is not just about driving the crooks out; we also need to provide comfort to the good operators who are being tarnished by these criminals.
I look forward to hearing the contributions from other noble Lords in this short debate and to hearing the Minister’s reply.
Lord Best
My Lords, having given prior notice, I rise to make a brief intervention, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for initiating this short debate.
I have been honoured to accept the invitation from Peter Aldous MP to take the mobile homes Private Member’s Bill through your Lordships’ House when it finishes its passage through the other place. I was present at the Second Reading debate on the Bill in the other place last Friday and I was extremely impressed by the unanimity of approval for the Bill. As a Cross-Bencher, I was delighted to see that party politics played no part in that high-quality debate. Rogue site owners were named, powerful examples of malpractice were given, and the solutions contained in the Bill were commended from all sides.
I congratulate Peter Aldous MP on introducing the Bill and securing such strong support for it. Congratulations are indeed also due on the long-standing campaign for justice for park home residents by the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, who has waited a long time for this Bill.
Lord Best
Thanks go, too, to the right honourable Grant Shapps, who was the Housing Minister who got behind this legislation and gave it government backing. Tribute must also be paid to the wonderful campaigners in the other place led by Annette Brooke MP, with backing from Natascha Engel MP and others associated with the APPG on this theme, propelled by faithful campaigners outside of Parliament, for whom this has been a long journey. I know that Members in the other place were greatly helped by the new Consumer Focus report, Living the Dream?, and the excellent analysis from Consumer Focus Wales, Park Life: Residential Mobile Home Living in Wales, and it is clear that the report from the CLG Select Committee, to which reference has been made, undoubtedly helped to win approval for the inclusion of the clause introducing the back-stop of a fit-and-proper-person test.
I noted five issues in the debate, a number of which have been considered by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. None of them is a deal breaker, but all are worth discussing in more depth. My anxiety is that some existing park home residents may feel let down if their current defective leases have to remain untouched and those long-suffering owners continue to face appalling treatment at the hands of site owners, but it may be possible to address that, and I am sure the Bill will be even better when it comes to us.
This is an incredibly important piece of legislation. It may affect only relatively few people scattered across the country, often in remote places, but it is going to make a vast difference to the quality of life of so many of them. I look forward very much to helping to steer it through its stages in this House, where I feel sure it will get tremendous support.
Lord Graham of Edmonton
My Lords, it is a joy and a pleasure to have this opportunity, given to us by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, to have a canter over the course. Undoubtedly when the Bill was passed last Friday, and I was there, many people, not least the Minister here today and the civil servants who have been frustrated over the years, were pleased. When I was in the Commons, I served on the 1983 Bill. Time after time the issues that have caused the problem have been raised. We made some progress, but all too often we were thwarted, not least by the change of ministerial responsibilities. Every time a Minister is led and schooled and has a grasp of the issue, unfortunately for the issue, he is moved on to other things. When Mr Grant Shapps came to the all-party meeting, I said that if he was not careful he would make a name for himself. Of course, he has made a name for himself. At that meeting he told us that time was precious and that if a Private Member’s Bill could be found, or if someone won the ballot, he would assist. I congratulate the Minister, who did what he was able to do, and we are all very grateful.
The Select Committee is invaluable. It is led by Clive Betts in the other place. The summary of the Select Committee’s first report states:
“Malpractice is widespread across the park home sector and complaints from residents about unfair fees, poor maintenance and site owners making it difficult for residents to sell their homes are common. Though we recognise that there are some good site operators, it is clear that action is needed now to improve the sector and drive the worst offenders out”.
There is no doubt that there are vast numbers of good site owners who have served loyally and long. However, I shall give the Committee an illustration that I have received. In Cornwall, there is a Mr Jeffrey Small, who is well known to those of us who have been following the issue. His wife is Barbara Small and his son is Jeffrey Small. They have been in trouble. Cornwall County Council said:
“The Smalls have been operating mobile park home sites for around 10 years, at times trading as J and B Small Park Homes and JBS Park Homes and often via offices … in Taunton”.
One of the problems is, of course, that it is not just the owner of one site—it is a site owner with many sites. Let me rattle through them. The park homes owned by Mr Small and his family include Battisford Park, Plympton; Beauford Park, Taunton; Beechdown Park, Paignton; Bickington Park, Barnstaple; Brimley Gardens, Bovey Tracey; Brookmeadow Park, Swindon; Broughton Park, Taunton; and others. Although I could go on, time would beat me.
The other problem is that we are talking not just about blocking the sale of park home sites but about other factors. One issue on which I am grateful to the Minister and his colleagues is the establishment of the Residential Property Tribunal, which is a mark along the way. It has been doing good work. I have here a report of a situation where Mr and Mrs Tony Glew raised some issues, but the site owners were found by the tribunal to have,
“failed to comply with the procedure incorporated into the agreement by Schedule 1, Part 1, Chapter 2 of the Mobile Homes Act”,
and so on. What is interesting here is that mention has been made of frail and elderly residents. This is what happened to the people in this case. The tribunal decision stated:
“On or about the 10th May 2011, they, or their servants or agents, entered the pitch of the park home address, removed and destroyed 2 gates and part of the fence, destroyed a large part of the garden, took up concrete slabs which had been used for parking a car and moved another section of fence all belonging to the Applicant and his wife. They then erected another fence to exclude most of the garden and all the car parking area from the pitch and to allow only pedestrian access to the park home”.
All this arose because the occupants, Mr and Mrs Glew —willing sellers—had found a willing buyer. Yet the landowners could not care tuppence about that. All the owners were interested in was whether the park home was making money for the business. They have a business and they are entitled to carry it on, but not to the detriment of the health or pockets of other people.
I am delighted that we have started on a journey. I know that I might have felt alone at times over the past 30 years, but this time I will not be alone and I am very grateful.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we should be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, for initiating this debate. I suspect that we will have a wide degree of consensus in our contributions—there certainly has been already. We have the benefit of the introduction of the Mobile Homes Bill—a Private Member’s Bill in the other place—which had its Second Reading just last week, of the CLG Select Committee report in June of this year, and of the Consumer Focus report that my noble friend Lord Whitty spoke to.
It should be clear from our contributions in the other place that we support the Private Member’s Bill, and I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Best, has been asked to take it forward in our House. I am sure that it will have strong support right across the House, as he suggested. We also support the need for comprehensive measures to address the abuses that are all too prevalent in this sector, some of which have been mentioned. These abuses continue despite some measures being taken by the previous Government to improve matters; and, sadly, more measures never made the statute book. However, like other noble Lords, we should not let this occasion pass without acknowledging the role of individual campaigners—the most prominent of which has been my noble friend Lord Graham. His faith and determination over 30 years has kept the flame alive.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, the Minister in the other place accepted that the practical constraints on the size of the Private Member’s Bill mean that it cannot include every issue on which the Government consulted. Perhaps some space in our legislative programme created by the lack of a House of Lords Reform Bill could give the Government time to take up more fully the issues that they feel have been left out by this Bill.
Perhaps the Minister could say, if extra time were available, what would be included in the legislation that the Private Member’s Bill currently excludes.
The problems with the sector are well documented. Inevitably, we have concentrated this afternoon on unscrupulous site owners—the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, referred to the “growing evidence of serious criminality” and that clearly is the case—but we should acknowledge that many site owners take their responsibilities seriously, as my noble friend Lord Whitty and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, acknowledged. The need to stop abuses is especially great because most residents of park homes are elderly and increasingly vulnerable. I have a statistic that says that 70% of them are over 70 years old. Many of them moved to park homes in retirement, into what they saw as idyllic homes in attractive locations.
As my honourable friend Natascha Engel MP pointed out in the Second Reading debate last week—a point echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott—the current legislation may be the Mobile Homes Act and the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act, but we are talking about people’s homes. They may not be made of bricks and mortar but they are essentially static.
The noble Baroness and others have highlighted the key issues: lack of maintenance of sites, deliberate miscalculation of pitch fees and utility charges, sale-blocking and intimidation. The Second Reading debate in the other place highlighted some of the disgraceful practices around sale-blocking, which is often coupled with intimidation and harassment.
Perhaps the question we should be addressing now is: will the Private Member’s Bill be the effective way of tackling these abuses? The Select Committee recommendations in particular made reference to the removal of a site owner’s existing right to approve the buyer, an interim measure to give the residential property tribunal the right to award damages and compensation when sale-blocking takes place, and modernising local authority licensing arrangements.
The capacity and funding of local authorities to conduct their licensing activities is an important matter. Clearly, the ability under the Bill to charge for that will help with resources. Perhaps it would be inappropriate on this occasion to debate the wider issue of the capacity and resources available to local authorities, but funding by way of charging for licensing activities would not necessarily deal with the support that is needed—but it is a start.
We support the discretion to grant or transfer a site licence that will help and deal with the problem created by mandatory current requirements, and the powers to serve a compliance notice on site owners and to intervene to carry out work when compliance is not forthcoming are important, as stressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott.
A long-standing point of contention is whether or not site owners and operators should be fit and proper persons, just as they need to be for HMO licence holders. As the Communities and Local Government Committee pointed out, although it may be difficult to apply retrospectively, and would need to consider who would take over the management if somebody was disqualified, nevertheless there should be regulations to that effect—and we support that recommendation. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, I ask the Government what will determine whether and at what point regulations should be brought in so that people have to be fit and proper persons.
The Select Committee recommendation was that,
“removing a site owner’s right to approve prospective buyers provides the only effective way to eliminate sale blocking”.
For new agreements, this seems to be a pretty straightforward arrangement but for existing agreements I think it is more protracted; the provisions in the Bill are less secure. I would appreciate the Minister’s view on that.
The Private Member’s Bill would appear to put us on the road to an effective regulatory regime for park homes. We are delighted to be able to support that and look forward to its passage through your Lordships’ House. However, it is not a panacea. My noble friend noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred to issues that could or should be dealt with by regulation, particularly the rules around re-selling of energy supplies. Perhaps the Minister could say what is intended on that front, and address the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, on the fact that this is not retrospective. How can we inculcate the provisions that are in the Bill in a way that could operate for the future, and will protect all of those who are at serious risk under current arrangements?
This has been a short but very important debate, and one that is timely, given the legislative process that is under way. I hope that that, in particular, will be a great comfort to my noble friend Lord Graham, for everything that he has done in the past.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, I believe I can say without risk of being challenged by anybody at all, that this is a debate, perhaps unusually, for the noble Lord and myself, where there is absolutely no disagreement at all.