Amendment 49

Part of Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill - Report (and remaining stages) – in the House of Lords at 6:00 pm on 24 May 2024.

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Photo of Lord Gascoigne Lord Gascoigne Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip) 6:00, 24 May 2024

As ever, I am grateful for the points my noble friend has made. I think it is as I have described previously: namely, that the Law Commission did not make any recommendations on local authority leaseholders. We recognise that the right to manage is not available for leaseholders with local authority landlords, where there are no secure tenants in the block. It is not available where there are only leaseholders.

I now turn to Amendment 50, tabled by my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington. We recognise that the participation requirement can cause difficulties if leaseholders cannot reach the threshold. But a participation requirement of one-half of the residential units is proportionate, ensuring that a minority of leaseholders are prevented from exercising the right to manage, which may be against the wishes of the Majority of leaseholders in a building.

Reducing the participation requirement to 35% is disproportionate and could lead to undesirable outcomes, such as an increase in disputes. It would risk a situation where competing groups of minority leaseholders could make repeated claims against each other. The Government accept the Law Commission’s recommendation to keep the participation threshold as it is. For these reasons, I ask that my noble friend does not press his amendment.

Amendment

As a bill passes through Parliament, MPs and peers may suggest amendments - or changes - which they believe will improve the quality of the legislation.

Many hundreds of amendments are proposed by members to major bills as they pass through committee stage, report stage and third reading in both Houses of Parliament.

In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.

The Speaker - or the chairman in the case of standing committees - has the power to select which amendments should be debated.

majority

The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.