Speeches by Curtis.

“I might have to run off a little bit early, so I apologise in advance for that. Sebastian. for many years, your organisation has been at the forefront of the campaign for commonhold. From first principles, why do you think commonhold will be better for flat owners than the leasehold system?”

“We have been talking about this for many years. I get your point, but I think the industry really knew that eventually, a party of one political stripe or another was going to come along and do something like this retrospectively. It has been in two manifestos. I struggle to see why doing that would convince people tha…”

“They have not done a great job at that, though, have they, if you are going to set that as the standard?”

“Let me put this argument to you: we have heard that deals, contracts and investments in the UK were made based on the law at the time and it is unfair to go back retrospectively. They also argue that it is costly to the British economy—£10 billion to £12 billion to make these changes was the figure that we keep having …”

“To flip Will’s question around, anecdotally, when I speak to people, they are often nervous about taking on those apartments because of the problems that currently exist in the leasehold system, and I assume that is reducing demand. Do you not have some confidence that perhaps if the Government do fix this, it could he…”

“Why wouldn’t commonholders organise that themselves?”

“There seems to be a bit of a logical jump happening. These investments are not really doing anything for Britain plc. There is no productivity gain to the British economy; there is no GDP growth from ownership of the freeholds on these flats. So I get the retrospective problem, but do you actually think that a Governme…”

“Do we need to care about that in the legislation though?”

“I am Chris Curtis, MP for Milton Keynes North.”

“You have given a good account of the arguments for the change to commonhold, but getting around many of the collective action problems that it creates can be complex. We have to ensure that the regulations are right. Are you confident that this Bill has got the balance right to ensure that we create a thriving commonho…”

“You are right that nailing it first time is going to be very difficult, but we want to get as close as we possibly can. Is there anything that we can learn from the Australian experience about how to get it as right as we can first time round?”

“In terms of process, this is an important part of our scrutiny of the legislation. From your conversations and your work over such a long period, what would it be useful for us to say to continue to push for the debate? Do you think it would be easier to say, “Put it in here,” than “Okay, it can’t go in here, but let’s…”

“I want to push a little bit more on the digitalisation point, Emily. It feels as though the Land Registry has fallen quite far behind where the private sector is, and behind lots of other parts of the state. It comes up in a lot of work we do as a Committee as a general recommendation. It did not feel as though there w…”

“I am Chris Curtis, Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes North.”

“Mark, you were talking about enfranchisement. Let us say we do phase it, and we park that for a bit. Is there not still a worry that the industry, particularly lenders, is not going to be in a place to accept commonhold on the day we pass all the secondary legislation?”

“Which other claimants are pursuing further litigation concerning LAFRA?”

“Is the Wallace Partnership Group seeking permission to appeal the ruling from October?”

“Yes.”

“We have heard that. Let us assume that you are not successful in winning that argument; I am sure many of your members would be frustrated by that. What do you think their next step will be? Do you think it will be going to a judicial review?”

“Let us simplify the argument. If the Bill passes in its current form, do you think there would then be a judicial review?”