Connect with us

Published

on

Nigel Lawson, chancellor to Margaret Thatcher, has died at the age of 91.

He leaves behind five of his six children, including TV chef Nigella Lawson and journalist Dominic Lawson. One of his daughters, Thomasina, died aged 32.

Born in Hampstead, northwest London, on 11 March 1932, the son of the owner of a tea-trading firm climbed his way to the top of British politics after an education at Westminster School and Oxford University.

His political life started at Oxford, where he did Philosophy, Politics and Economics – like many other politicians – but he began his working life carrying out national service as a Royal Navy officer.

Lord Lawson, as he was to become, then became a financial journalist, writing for the Financial Times and The Sunday Telegraph, before becoming editor of The Spectator.

After 14 years as a journalist, in 1970 he stood to become an MP, unsuccessfully, for the Eton and Slough seat before eventually winning the now-defunct Leicestershire constituency of Blaby four years later.

When the Conservatives won the election in 1979 under Mrs Thatcher, she made him financial secretary to the Treasury and her policies at the time clearly reflected his influence.

More on Margaret Thatcher

She then promoted him to energy secretary, where he helped prepare for what he called “inevitable” full-scale strikes in the coal industry, which had been nationalised by Labour prime minister Clement Attlee.

But it was as chancellor that Mr Lawson ensured he would go down in the history books.

The new Cabinet of Mrs Thatcher's Conservative government. (Standing from left) Chief Whip Mr John Wakeham, Agriculture Minister Mr Michael Jopling, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Lord Cockfield, Employment Secretary Mr Norman Tebbit, Lord Privy Seal Mr John Biffen, Welsh Secretary Mr Nicholas Edwards, Environment Secretary Mr Patrick Jenkin, Social Services Secretary Mr Norman Fowler, Trade and Industry Secretary Mr Cecil Parkinson, Transport Secretary Mr Tom King, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Mr Peter Rees and Secretary to to the Cabinet Sir Robert Armstrong. (Seated from left) Defence Secretary Mr Michael Heseltine, Northern Ireland Secretary Mr James Prior, Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr Nigel Lawson, Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, Lord President Viscount Whitelaw, Premier Mrs Margaret Thatcher, Lord Chancellor Lord Hailsham, Home Secretary Mr Leon Brittan, Education Secretary Sir Keith Jospeh, Energy Secretary Mr Peter Walker and Scottish Secretary Mr George Younger.
Image:
Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet in 1983. Nigel Lawson is sitting third from the left

Tax cuts, the Big Bang and the Lawson Boom

The second longest-serving chancellor after Gordon Brown, Mr Lawson was key to Mrs Thatcher’s economic policies – and success.

After getting the job in 1983 he pushed ahead with tax reforms, reducing corporation taxes and lowering National Insurance contributions for the lower-paid, while extending the VAT base.

From 1986, his public image grew after he reduced the standard rate of personal income tax and unemployment began to fall.

He also managed to turn around government finances from a budget deficit of £10.5bn in 1983 to a surplus of £3.9bn in 1988 and £4.1bn in 1989.

However, the government’s current account deficit increased from below 1% GDP to almost 5% in three years.

Former Chancellor Nigel Lawson

Mr Lawson managed to honour his promise to bring taxation rates down, with the basic rate going from 30% to 25%, and the top tax rate from 60% to 40%. He also removed other higher rates so nobody paid above 40% in personal tax.

One of his major triumphs was the Big Bang of 1986, which saw the City’s financial markets deregulated and London strengthened as a financial capital – but in 2010, he admitted the “unintended consequence” of that was the 2007 financial crisis.

He even had a period of economic growth named after him. The Lawson Boom saw the UK economy on the up after 1986, with unemployment halved.

However, that led to a rise in inflation to 8% in 1988 and interest rates doubled to 15% within 18 months, with critics accusing Mr Lawson of unleashing an inflationary spiral due to his policies.

In his 1992 memoir, written just after he stepped down as an MP, Mr Lawson admitted the 1987 manifesto was not properly thought through and if it had not been for the economic growth, the manifesto would have been a disaster.

“As it was, it was merely an embarrassment,” he said.

Mr Lawson with a battered red Budget Box in 1987
Image:
Mr Lawson with a battered red Budget Box in 1987

Clashes with Thatcher

While he was Mrs Thatcher’s right-hand man, the pair did not always see eye-to-eye and he was overruled in cabinet when he opposed introducing a poll tax to replace local government financing.

There was also the now-infamous 1988 budget, which took nearly two hours for Mr Lawson to announce as there were continuous interruptions and protests from opposition parties.

The then-depute leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond, was suspended from the Commons for his constant interruptions and MPs voted against amending the law bill.

Nigel Lawson with Margaret Thatcher at the 1989 Conservative Party Conference
Image:
Nigel Lawson with Margaret Thatcher at the 1989 Conservative Party Conference

Mrs Thatcher and her chancellor also clashed over the exchange-rate mechanism (ERM) membership in 1985, with Mr Lawson – ironically, as he became a Brexiteer – believing membership was the only way forward to help convince the markets the UK was committed to fiscal discipline.

It proved to be one of Mrs Thatcher’s most tumultuous meetings with her senior ministers as she single-handedly faced them down after Mr Lawson had spoken separately to all of the ministers present to persuade them to ambush her.

Mr Lawson later said he had considered resigning after she said their arguments did not convince her, but he was dissuaded by colleagues. Mrs Thatcher was persuaded to sign up to the ERM five years later by Mr Lawson’s successor, John Major.

The prime minister’s relationship with her chancellor took another dive when she re-employed economist Alan Walters in 1989 as her personal economic adviser, with Mr Lawson at loggerheads with them over the ERM.

He threatened to resign if Mrs Thatcher did not sack Mr Walters over his support of the ERM. Mrs Thatcher wrote in a private memo that was “absurd” and urged him to rethink – and Mr Lawson quit.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, after raising UK interest rates, the tenth rise in base rates in less than a year.  24/5/1989

National Archive files released in 2017 revealed the extent Mr Walters was briefing against Mr Lawson, including telling Mrs Thatcher that Mr Lawson’s position over the ERM was having a devastating impact on the UK economy.

Mr Lawson’s resignation was seen as the beginning of the end for Mrs Thatcher, with her foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe resigning shortly after – and Mrs Thatcher resigned in 1990 after Michael Heseltine decided to challenge her for leadership of the Conservative Party.

Post-Thatcher

Mr Lawson remained as a backbencher until 1992, when he was elevated to the House of Lords with a life peerage, and was known as Lord Lawson of Blaby.

Months after he stood down as an MP, he lost five stone after his doctor told him his knee problems would not stop if he continued to carry the weight.

It dramatically changed his appearance and he published The Nigel Lawson Diet Book, which became a best seller.

NIGEL LAWSON

Previously 17 stone and 5ft 9, he had been an easy target for political cartoonists – although it did not bother him – and he admitted after losing weight: “I was certainly a fat man.

“It came up gradually, and by the time I was chancellor, certainly, that was the thing the cartoonists seized on; that was part of the image – no doubt about it.”

Mr Lawson used his time away from the Commons to occasionally appear as a guest on daughter Nigella’s cookery shows.

He also served on the advisory board of the Conservative magazine Standpoint.

Two wives, six children

Mr Lawson was married twice. His first wife was former ballet dancer Vanessa Salmon with whom he had Dominic (the journalist), Thomasina (who died of breast cancer aged 32), Nigella (the TV chef) and Horatia. After they divorced, Ms Salmon died of liver cancer aged 48.

His second wife was former Commons researcher Therese Maclear, who he married the same year he divorced Ms Salmon. They had son Tom and daughter Emily before they divorced in 2008.

Nigel Lawson with his TV chef daughter Nigella Lawson in 2008
Image:
Nigel Lawson with his TV chef daughter Nigella Lawson in 2008

In 2011, he found love again at the age of 79 with 42-year-old Dr Tina Jennings, a former banker who was previously married to New Zealand’s richest man.

However, they split up two years later, with Dr Jennings reportedly finding it hard to go regularly to France, which Mr Lawson did every weekend.

Controversial support for Brexit

In 2009, Mr Lawson was caught up in the parliamentary expenses scandal after he was accused of claiming £16,000 in overnight allowances by registering his farmhouse in Gascony, southwest France, as his main residence.

In 2013, the former chancellor pushed for the UK to leave the EU and ahead of the 2016 referendum he was appointed chairman of the Vote Leave campaign.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Nigel Lawson on George Osborne’s 2016 Autumn Statement

At the time, he was living in France and in 2018 started to apply for his official French residency card.

His critics accused him of hypocrisy for living in France yet campaigning for the UK to leave the EU, but he said he did not believe the issue of Britons living in other EU countries was a big problem in the Brexit negotiations.

In 2019, Mr Lawson returned to live in the UK after putting his Gascony mansion on the market. He said it was to be close to his children and grandchildren.

Climate scepticism

In opposition to Mrs Thatcher, who helped put climate change on the agenda, Mr Lawson was very sceptical of the concept and denied global warming is taking place to such a large degree as many scientists say.

He wrote a letter in 2004 criticising the Kyoto Protocol and claiming there were substantial scientific uncertainties.

As a member of the House of Lords Economics Affairs Select Committee, he carried out an inquiry into climate change in 2005 and recommended the Treasury take a more active role in climate policy.

The report said there was a mismatch between the economic costs and the benefits of climate policy – which kicked off a tussle between him and Michael Grubb, chief economist of the Carbon Trust.

He contributed to the 2007 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle and in 2008 published a book called An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming.

In the book, he admitted global warming is happening and will have negative consequences but said the impact of those changes will be moderate rather than apocalyptic, and criticised “alarmist” politicians and scientists.

He was heavily denounced by climate scientists and the UK’s chief scientific adviser at the time, Sir John Beddington, who privately told Mr Lawson he had “incorrect” and “misleading” claims in the book.

But that did not stop him airing his views, and in 2009 he launched a new thinktank called The Global Warming Policy Foundation.

His journalist son, Dominic Lawson, is also a climate change sceptic.

Continue Reading

UK

Met Police release footage as more than 1,000 arrests made using live facial recognition technology

Published

on

By

Met Police release footage as more than 1,000 arrests made using live facial recognition technology

More than 1,000 criminals, including a paedophile found with a six-year-old girl, have been arrested by the Metropolitan Police using live facial recognition (LFR) cameras.

David Cheneler, 73, was among 93 registered sex offenders held by Met officers using the controversial technology since the start of last year.

He was discovered with the girl after he was identified by a camera on a police van in Camberwell, south London, in January.

Cheneler, from Lewisham, was jailed for two years in May after admitting breaching his sexual harm prevention order by being with a child under the age of 14.

The Met said a total of 1,035 arrests have been made using live facial recognition technology – where live footage is recorded of people as they walk past, capturing their faces, which are then compared against a database of wanted offenders.

If a match is determined, the system creates an alert which is assessed by an officer, who may decide to speak to the person.

They include more than 100 people alleged to have been involved in serious violence against women and girls (VAWG) offences such as strangulation, stalking, domestic abuse, and rape.

More on Crime

Adenola Akindutire admitted charges including robbery. Pic: Met Police
Image:
Adenola Akindutire admitted charges including robbery. Pic: Met Police

Adenola Akindutire was stopped during an operation in Stratford and arrested over the machete robbery of a Rolex watch, which left the victim with life-changing injuries after the attack in Hayes, west London.

Police said the 22-year-old, who was linked to a similar incident and had been released on bail, was in possession of a false passport and could have evaded arrest if it wasn’t for the technology.

Akindutire, of no fixed address, admitted charges including robbery, attempted robbery, grievous bodily harm, possession of a false identity document and two counts of possession of a bladed article and faces sentencing at Isleworth Crown Court.

 Darren Dubarry was stopped on his bike. Pic: Met Police
Image:
Darren Dubarry was stopped on his bike. Pic: Met Police

Darren Dubarry was caught with stolen designer clothes. Pic: Met Police
Image:
Dubarry was caught with stolen designer clothes. Pic: Met Police

Darren Dubarry, 50, was already wanted for theft when he was caught with stolen designer clothing in Dalston, east London, after riding past an LFR camera on his bike.

The 50-year-old, from Stratford, east London, was fined after pleading guilty to handling stolen goods.

Lindsey Chiswick, the Met’s LFR lead, hailed the 1,000 arrest milestone as “a demonstration of how cutting-edge technology can make London safer by removing dangerous offenders from our streets”.

“Live Facial Recognition is a powerful tool, which is helping us deliver justice for victims, including those who have been subjected to horrendous offences, such as rape and serious assault,” she said.

“It is not only saving our officers’ valuable time but delivering faster, more accurate results to catch criminals – helping us be more efficient than ever before.”

The Met say “robust safeguards” are in place, which ensure no biometric data is retained from anyone who walks past an LFR camera who isn’t wanted by police.

Almost 2 million faces scanned

But human rights group Liberty is calling for new laws to be introduced to govern how police forces use the technology after Liberty Investigates found almost 1.9 million faces were scanned by the Met between January 2022 and March this year.

Read more from Sky News:
Leaseholders to get stronger rights, powers and protections
PM told to ‘use Rayner – people like her’

Charlie Whelton, Liberty policy and campaigns officer, said: “We all want to feel safe in our communities, but technology is advancing quickly, and we need to make sure that our laws keep up.

“Any tech which has the potential to infringe on our rights in the way scanning and identifying millions of people does needs to have robust safeguards around its use to protect us all from abuse of power as we go about our daily lives.

“There is currently no overarching law governing police use of facial recognition in the UK, and we shouldn’t leave police forces to come up with these frameworks on their own.

“Almost two million faces have been scanned in London before Parliament has even decided what the laws should be.

“We need to catch up with other countries, and the law needs to catch up with the use. Parliament must legislate now and ensure that safeguards are in place to protect people’s rights where the police use this technology.”

Continue Reading

UK

I’ve followed the PM wherever he goes in his first year in office – here’s what I’ve observed

Published

on

By

I've followed the PM wherever he goes in his first year in office - here's what I've observed

July 5 2024, 1pm: I remember the moment so clearly.

Keir Starmer stepped out of his sleek black car, grasped the hand of his wife Vic, dressed in Labour red, and walked towards a jubilant crowd of Labour staffers, activists and MPs waving union jacks and cheering a Labour prime minister into Downing Street for the first time in 14 years.

Starmer and his wife took an age to get to the big black door, as they embraced those who had helped them win this election – their children hidden in the crowd to watch their dad walk into Number 10.

Politics latest: Corbyn starts new party

Keir Starmer, not the easiest public speaker, came to the podium and told the millions watching this moment the “country has voted decisively for change, for national renewal”.

He spoke about the “weariness at the heart of the nation” and “the lack of trust” in our politicians as a “wound” that “can only be healed by actions not words”. He added: “This will take a while but the work of change begins immediately.”

A loveless landslide

That was a day in which this prime minister made history. His was a victory on a scale that comes around but one every few decades.

He won the largest majority in a quarter of a century and with it a massive opportunity to become one of the most consequential prime ministers of modern Britain – alongside the likes of Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair.

But within the win was a real challenge too.

👉 Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app 👈

Starmer’s was a loveless landslide, won on a lower share of the vote than Blair in all of his three victories and 6 percentage points lower than the 40% Jeremy Corbyn secured in the 2017 general election.

It was the lowest vote share than any party forming a post-war majority government. Support for Labour was as shallow as it was wide.

In many ways then, it was a landslide built on shaky foundations: low public support, deep mistrust of politicians, unhappiness with the state of public services, squeezed living standards and public finances in a fragile state after the huge cost of the pandemic and persistent anaemic growth.

Put another way, the fundamentals of this Labour government, whatever Keir Starmer did, or didn’t do, were terrible. Blair came in on a new dawn. This Labour government, in many ways, inherited the scorched earth.

The one flash of anger I’ve seen

For the past year, I have followed Keir Starmer around wherever he goes. We have been to New York, Washington (twice), Germany (twice), Brazil, Samoa, Canada, Ukraine, the Netherlands and Brussels. I can’t even reel off the places we’ve been to around the UK – but suffice to say we’ve gone to all the nations and regions.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Starmer pushed on scale of “landslide” election win

What I have witnessed in the past year is a prime minister who works relentlessly hard. When we flew for 27 hours non-stop to Samoa last autumn to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) summit, every time I looked up at the plane, I saw a solitary PM, his headlight shining on his hair, working away as the rest of us slept or watched films.

He also seems almost entirely unflappable. He rarely expresses emotion. The only time I have seen a flash of anger was when I questioned him about accepting freebies in a conversation that ended up involving his family, and when Elon Musk attacked Jess Phillips.

I have also witnessed him being buffeted by events in a way that he would not have foreseen. The arrival of Donald Trump into the White House has sucked the prime minister into a whirlwind of foreign crises that has distracted him from domestic events.

When he said over the weekend, as a way of explanation not an excuse, that he had been caught up in other matters and taken his eye off the ball when it came to the difficulties of welfare reform, much of Westminster scoffed, but I didn’t.

I had followed him around in the weeks leading up to that vote. We went from the G7 in Canada, to the Iran-Israel 12-day war, to the NATO summit in the Hague, as the prime minister dealt with, in turn, the grooming gangs inquiry decision, the US-UK trade deal, Donald Trump, de-escalation in the Middle East and a tricky G7 summit, the assisted dying vote, the Iran-Israel missile crisis.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

In September 2024, the PM defended taking £20k GCSE donation

He was taking so many phone calls on Sunday morning from Chequers, that he couldn’t get back to London for COBRA [national emergency meeting] because he couldn’t afford to not have a secure phone line for the hour-long drive back to Downing Street.

He travelled to NATO, launched the National Security Review and agreed to the defence alliance’s commitment to spend 5% of GDP on defence by 2035. So when he came back from the Hague into a full-blown welfare rebellion, I did have some sympathy for him – he simply hadn’t had the bandwidth to deal with the rebellion as it began to really gather steam.

Dealing with rebellion

Where I have less sympathy with the prime minister and his wider team is how they let it get to that point in the first place.

Keir Starmer wasn’t able to manage the latter stages of the rebellion, but the decisions made months earlier set it up in all its glory, while Downing Street’s refusal to heed the concerns of MPs gave it momentum to spiral into a full-blown crisis.

The whips gave warning after 120 MPs signed a letter complaining about the measures, the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall had done the same, but Starmer and Reeves were, in the words of one minister, “absolutist”.

“They assumed people complaining about stuff do it because they are weak, rather than because they are strong,” said the minister, who added that following the climbdown, figures in Number 10 “just seemed completely without knowledge of the gravity of it”.

That he marks his first anniversary with the humiliation of having to abandon his flagship welfare reforms or face defeat in the Commons – something that should be unfathomable in the first year of power with a majority that size – is disappointing.

To have got it that wrong, that quickly with your parliamentary party, is a clear blow to his authority and is potentially more chronic. I am not sure yet how he recovers.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Welfare vote ‘a blow to the prime minister’

Keir Starmer said he wanted to rule country first, party second, but finds himself pinned by a party refusing to accept his centrist approach. Now, ministers tell MPs that there will be a financial consequence of the government’s decision to delay tightening the rules on claiming disability benefits beyond the end of 2026.

A shattered Rachel Reeves now has to find the £5bn she’d hoped to save another way. She will defend her fiscal rules, which leaves her the invidious choice of tax rises or spending cuts. Sit back and watch for the growing chorus of MPs that will argue Starmer needs to raise more taxes and pivot to the left.

That borrowing costs of UK debt spiked on Wednesday amid speculation that the chancellor might resign or be sacked, is a stark reminder that Rachel Reeves, who might be unpopular with MPs, is the markets’ last line of defence against spending-hungry Labour MPs. The party might not like her fiscal rules, but the markets do.

What’s on the horizon for year two?

The past week has set the tone now for the prime minister’s second year in office. Those around him admit that the parliamentary party is going to be harder to govern. For all talk of hard choices, they have forced the PM to back down from what were cast as essential welfare cuts and will probably calculate that they can move him again if they apply enough pressure.

There is also the financial fall-out, with recent days setting the scene for what is now shaping up to be another definitive budget for a chancellor who now has to fill a multi-billion black hole in the public finances.

But I would argue that the prime minister has misjudged the tone as he marks that first year. Faced with a clear crisis and blow to his leadership, instead of tackling that head on the prime minister sought to ignore it and try to plough on, embarking on his long-planned launch of the 10-year NHS plan to mark his year in office, as if the chancellor’s tears and massive Labour rebellions over the past 48 hours were mere trifles.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Why was the chancellor crying at PMQs?

It was inevitable that this NHS launch would be overshadowed by the self-inflicted shambles over welfare and the chancellor’s distress, given this was the first public appearance of both of them since it had all blown up.

But when I asked the prime minister to explain how it had gone so wrong on welfare and how he intended to rebuild your trust and authority in your party, he completely ignored my question. Instead, he launched into a long list of Labour’s achievements in his first year: 4 million extra NHS appointments; free school meals to half a million more children; more free childcare; the biggest upgrade in employment rights for a generation; and the US, EU and India free trade deals.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Starmer defends reaction to Reeves crying in PMQs

I can understand the point he was making and his frustration that his achievements are being lost in the maelstrom of the political drama. But equally, this is politics, and he is the prime minister. This is his story to tell, and blowing up your welfare reform on the anniversary week of your government is not the way to do it.

Is Starmer failing to articulate his mission?

For Starmer himself, he will do what I have seen him do before when he’s been on the ropes, dig in, learn from the errors and try to come back stronger. I have heard him in recent days talk about how he has always been underestimated and then proved he can do it – he is approaching this first term with the same grit.

If you ask his team, they will tell you that the prime minister and this government is still suffering from the unending pessimism that has pervaded our national consciousness; the sense politics doesn’t work for working people and the government is not on their side.

Read more from Sky News:
Analysis: PM’s authority damaged
Numbers behind housing pledge
Fiscal rules are silly but important

Starmer knows what he needs to do: restore the social contract, so if you work hard you should get on in life. The spending review and its massive capital investment, the industrial strategy and strategic defence review – three pieces of work dedicated to investment and job creation – are all geared to trying to rebuild the country and give people a brighter future.

But equally, government has been, admit insiders, harder than they thought as they grapple with multiple crises facing the country – be that public services, prisons, welfare.

It has also lacked direction. Sir Keir would do well to focus on following his Northern Star. I think he has one – to give working people a better life and ordinary people the chance to fulfil their potential.

But somehow, the prime minister is failing to articulate his mission, and he knows that. When I asked him at the G7 summit in Canada what his biggest mistake of the first year was, he told me: “We haven’t always told our story as well as we should.”

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Beth Rigby asks the PM to reflect on a year in office

I go back to the Keir Starmer of July 5 2024. He came in on a landslide, he promised to change the country, he spoke of the lack of trust and the need to prove to the public that the government could make their lives better through actions not words.

In this second year, he is betting that the legislation he has passed and strategies he has launched will drive that process of change, and in doing so, build back belief.

But it is equally true that his task has become harder these past few weeks. He has spilled so much blood over welfare for so little gain, his first task is to reset the operation to better manage the party and rebuild support.

But bigger than that, he needs to find a way to not just tell his government’s story but sell his government’s story. He has four years left.

Continue Reading

UK

Leaseholders to get rights to more easily challenge extortionate service charges

Published

on

By

Leaseholders to get rights to more easily challenge extortionate service charges

Leaseholders will be able to more easily challenge extortionate service charges, the government has said.

For those who are trapped in the midst of the leasehold scandal, the reforms cannot come soon enough.

They have been promised change for many years by successive governments and by Labour in opposition, so any progress will be welcome, but is it enough for those suffering financially?

It’s a complex problem but at the heart of it are service charges that go higher and higher in a way that is often inexplicable, unpredictable and opaque.

These are fees for building services and maintenance that are on top of the homeowner’s mortgage.

They often run into thousands of pounds, go way over the initial estimate and it is not clear why they are so high.

By forcing companies to be transparent about the fees they are charging, the government is hoping to tackle this.

More on Housing

The reforms, which the government has said it will push through after a consultation, will receive standardised service charge documentation which spell out clear and detailed information about how their service charges are calculated and spent.

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook
Image:
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook

Further reforms will stop leaseholders having to automatically pay for landlords’ litigation costs even where they have won their case.

According to housing minister Matthew Pennycook, the changes will enable homeowners to challenge unreasonable charges more easily.

He also believes it will put pressure on managing agents to bring fees down.

The government will also introduce a strict new qualification regime for managing agents to try to raise standards in the sector.

Read more:
Labour drops pledge to abolish leasehold within 100 days

Pensioner, 90, hit with £17,000 ground rent bill

Terraced housing and blocks of flats in west London. Pic: PA
Image:
Terraced housing and blocks of flats in west London. Pic: PA

Mr Pennycook told Sky News: “The system has some inherent inequities in it that do allow leaseholders to be gouged and particularly when it comes to managing agents there are unscrupulous people out there.

“They are abusing leaseholders and there’s poor practice.

“The reforms we are announcing today and reforms that are to come are going to bear down managing agents and ensure the sector as a whole is properly regulated.”

Asked why it has taken a year to make this announcement, and why further changes could take much longer, he said: “We’ve got to take forward through primary legislation the wider reforms necessary to bring the system to an end.

“You can’t do that in 100 days but we are also determined to provide relief to existing leaseholders now.”

Continue Reading

Trending