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12,868 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
The hon. Member’s enthusiasm is infectious. He came to meet me when I was Secretary of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to talk about the Golden Valley, and we spoke about our shared ambition in that area for the clustering of expertise that having GCHQ and others brings to the community he represents. I share in the hon. Member’s celebration and hope that I get to visit at some point soon.
Rick Rescorla, a son of Hayle in my constituency, was a security guard in the Twin Towers on 9/11, and is widely credited with saving 2,700 lives while sacrificing his own. Decorated in his career in both the British and US armies, Rick was truly a national hero. Ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time on the heroes of 9/11, and also help me secure British and US army representation at a ceremony in Hayle on 9/11?
Rosemundy mother and baby home, a Church of England-affiliated institution in St Agnes in my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency, was a key institution in this scandal. The shame and pain has lived with these families for decades, and many have since taken this pain to their graves. As the Member of Parliament for St Agnes, I warmly welcome and echo the Prime Minister’s national apology and what he said about lessons being learned, so that we can at least try to relieve a tiny fraction of that pain. Does he agree that we simply would not be here today without the tireless and extraordinary efforts of the campaigners?
I want to raise awareness of the transformative role of further education in remote coastal communities, like mine in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle in Cornwall. Despite the talent, ambition and resilience of our young people, parts of my constituency continue to experience persistent deprivation. Nine neighbourhoods rank among the most deprived in the entire country. But amidst that deprivation, our local further education sector is helping to change lives and create opportunity. Cornwall college, which is rated outstanding by Ofsted, is a shining example. It is a vital cog driving our economic engine, equipping young people with the skills that they need to succeed, and providing employers with the workforce required to unleash the Cornish Celtic tiger.
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. In Cornwall, we have had significant issues with bus services to our colleges. We really need the Government to help with that. Cornwall is on its way to an industrial renaissance as a strategically significant economic frontier. We are seeing exciting developments in critical minerals, including tin, lithium and tungsten, as well as in geothermal energy and offshore wind. Those sectors are creating good jobs that are vital to the national interest, and will help us to transition away from a fossil-fuel-based economy. With that in mind, I warmly welcome the launch this September of the new Engineering Mining Academy. This is a partnership between Cornwall college and Cornish Metals. It brings together two of Cornwall’s crown jewels to train the next generation of engineers and mining professionals, and will ensure that young people can benefit directly from the return of the mining industry to Cornwall. This is exactly the kind of collaboration we need if we are to seize the opportunity to deliver growth in every corner of the country. However, we cannot let staffing challenges, or cuts to dedicated student bus services, which my hon. Friend just mentioned, threaten those opportunities. Recruitment and retention are especially difficult in remote coastal areas, where there are profound housing and transport pressures. Unless we address workforce shortages, we risk undermining the FE institutions that are providing the skills on which our future economy depends. Cornwall’s FE colleges are playing their part, but we need the Government to step up and provide the funding settlement that our FE colleges deserve.
Shabir Ahmed was the ringleader of a disgusting Rochdale grooming gang. He was convicted of serial rapes against young white girls and repeated rapes of a young Asian girl. Today, Shabir Ahmed is being released from prison with a restriction that he should not enter the Rochdale or Oldham boroughs—yet Shabir Ahmed is joint UK-Pakistani national, and he should be deported to Pakistan. Does the Leader of the House agree that the Home Office and the Foreign Office should do everything possible within their power to make sure that people like Ahmed are deported and that their victims never ever have to face them again?
T5. Kirklees college provides the training and qualifications needed to kick-start a wide range of careers for many young people in my constituency. However, all too often many from deprived backgrounds struggle to access such education. Will the Secretary of State outline what steps the Department is taking to improve accessibility to further education for people from more deprived backgrounds?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I congratulate my near-neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster) on securing this important debate. I wish him well. I also congratulate the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) on achieving the childhood ambition of having his very own bat-phone. I am, as they say, well jel.
It will have been very important to place that on the record once the right hon. Gentleman gets home this evening, I imagine. The Government’s aim to reduce premature deaths from heart disease and stroke by 25% over the next decade is welcome, ambitious and absolutely necessary. Cardiovascular disease remains one of the biggest public health challenges that this country faces. Across the country more than 8 million people live with cardiovascular disease. As has been mentioned, despite decades of progress, we now see a worrying reversal. Premature deaths are rising again for the first time in over half a century. One thing I have personally been doing to reduce my chances of being a victim of cardiovascular disease is walking more. During the recent Makerfield by-election, I was very lucky—not just to be part of the wonderful campaign to return a new Member to this House but to undertake almost half-a-million steps around the streets of Wigan over the course of 17 punishing days. I am celebrating not only a new Member for Makerfield but having lost four pounds. For those of us who represent communities in the north-west, the challenges around cardiovascular disease are particularly acute. Health inequalities remain stark. People living in some of our most deprived communities are significantly more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and more than twice as likely to die prematurely from it. Behind every one of those statistics is a family changed forever. There is good news, though: many of those deaths are preventable. Up to 80% of premature deaths from cardiovascular disease can be prevented and 70% of cases are linked to modifiable risk factors such as smoking, obesity, poor diet and inactivity. That is why prevention should be at the heart of the Government’s approach. We need to continue to drive down smoking rates, to make healthy food more accessible and to design our communities and the places where people live around cycling, walking and physical activity. We need to recognise—it is a cliché but only because it is true—that prevention is better and simply cheaper than cure. It keeps people healthier and more independent for longer, and allows people to fully participate in social life. Early diagnosis is equally important. Millions of people are currently living undiagnosed with high blood pressure. We know that identifying and treating conditions such as hypertension, high cholesterol and the like earlier can prevent thousands of heart attacks and strokes. I particularly welcome the Government’s commitment to neighbourhood health services. Taking screening and checks into communities, making better use of pharmacies, using data more intelligently and increasingly using AI technologies are all real opportunities to narrow the health inequalities that can scar our communities. We need to stop treating conditions in isolation. So many people with cardiovascular disease are also living with other long-term health conditions. Patients do not just experience heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease or obesity separately; they experience them together. Our health system must increasingly treat the person rather than the condition. Finally, while prevention is crucial, we cannot ignore access to treatment. There are long waits for cardiac care, and there are increasing and continuing pressures on ambulance response times, meaning that too many people are still waiting too long for an emergency response. The forthcoming modern service framework for cardiovascular disease represents a significant opportunity—it must be ambitious. It should be focused on prevention and early intervention, tackle inequalities head on and ensure that everyone, regardless of where they live, can access timely, high-quality care. If we get this right, we will not only save lives but reduce pressure on the NHS, strengthen our economy and create a fairer, healthier country. Even without a bat-phone of my own, I look forward to supporting the Government in delivering their ambition.
I thank the Prime Minister wholeheartedly for this apology. Everyone present can see the pain, and the real need for this. I want to ask quite a technical point about the national online resource. Families often end up paying huge amounts of money to try to locate family members. Often, DNA is a way that people are reunited. Is that something that has been considered, in terms of the online resource, in order to help people reunite with family members in cases where records have been lost, heavily redacted or withheld?
I declare an interest as a leasehold homeowner, which is very common in Sheffield. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) for securing this important debate. I agree wholeheartedly with the recommendations of her Committee, and of Lord Best, about a regulator. I welcome the fact that this Government have begun to take a close look at the injustices embedded in the leasehold system. It treats leaseholders not as full homeowners, but as a revenue stream for distant freeholders and managing agents. The draft commonhold and leasehold reform Bill is an important step forward in correcting the imbalance, and I believe that it will help address many of the structural problems that leaseholders have endured. In my constituency, the consequences of the system are painfully clear, as has been mentioned by my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed). Not only have my constituents experienced threats of forfeiture, but they have been asked to pay thousands of pounds to their freeholder for minor breaches of their lease. The ability of a freeholder to strip someone of their home is an extraordinary concentration of power, and I am pleased that the Government’s commonhold and leasehold reform Bill proposes abolishing forfeiture entirely. However, abolishing forfeiture alone does not resolve the fundamental injustice. Leaseholders remain trapped in a system that, at its core, is a feudal relic—a structure designed not to empower people, but to extract value from them. Under this system, people who have bought homes find themselves paying escalating service charges, opaque administration fees and arbitrary costs imposed by freeholders. A significant number of my constituents own leasehold houses, and their lease requires them to ask permission from their freeholder before building a loft conversion or extension, and even before selling on their home. Those permissions are demanded in return for ground rents of little worth—often £10 a year—yet they give freeholders extraordinary control over the lives of leaseholders. That is not a fair housing system. My constituents have a clear ask. They have rightly suggested that leaseholders of houses should be given a statutory right of first refusal when their leaseholds are sold. At present, leaseholders of houses do not have this right, while leaseholders of flats do. If a freeholder decides to sell the freehold of a house, the leaseholder has no guaranteed opportunity to buy it. They may learn of the sale only once it has occurred, several months later. If we are serious about empowering leaseholders, the right of first refusal must be extended. That should be included in the Bill. It is not just freeholders who cause problems. We have heard about the problems caused to residents by managing agents, including in my constituency, where leaseholders were made to find £22,000 within five months for major works after an inept management company left balconies and walls to crumble, and the eventual repairs to become more expensive. A two-bedroom flat on that estate was advertised for sale with an annual service charge of £5,067, or £422 a month, which in Sheffield is a staggering amount of money, given our relatively low housing costs. Unsurprisingly, some of my constituents have struggled to sell their flats; they are trapped in the Catch-22 that others have mentioned. It is time that we ended that. We need to ensure that all the powers in the Bill are enacted, but we should also be looking at ways to future-proof it, and to root the regulator in fairness.
Does my hon. Friend agree that a proper regulator for the property management sector, far from being anti-growth, would be a pro-growth measure bringing transparency and good functioning to these incredibly opaque markets that exploit leaseholders and renters?
Many of us remain frustrated by delays to Royal Mail postal deliveries. My constituent Anthony Barnes was removed from a treatment waiting list on three occasions because hospital communications did not arrive in time. I have encouraged local healthcare providers to use Royal Mail’s NHS-specific barcode, which prioritises delivery for health board correspondence. Can I ask the Leader of the House for a ministerial update on Royal Mail’s performance, including uptake of the NHS-specific barcode? That will be important to many of our constituents across the UK.
Vernon Building Society, which was established in 1924, offers financial services to people in Stockport and across Greater Manchester. It is a true mutual, owned by members, not shareholders. However, as the building society sector grows, there are concerns about meaningful democratic engagement for members. In particular, in Nationwide, which is the largest building society in the world, concerns have been raised about a virtual-only annual general meeting, a lack of member-nominated directors and the quick vote mechanism. When members are owners, they must have a meaningful voice in how the organisation is run and governed. As such, may I ask the Leader of the House for a debate in Government time on the Building Societies Act 1986 and the need for a meaningful democratic voice for the membership?
The owner of Palace Cycles recently told me that while explaining to a customer that he would not service the illegally modified e-bike that had been brought into his shop, the bike shot across the shop of its own accord. When will the Government regulate to ban the sale of dodgy, illegal, unsafe e-bikes and the kits that create them?
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) for securing this very important debate, which I know will be of interest to constituents of mine who find themselves victims of fleecehold. Across the country, too many people are now buying homes on freehold estates and then finding themselves let down by developers and estate management companies that fail to deliver the services they promised. Developers build these estates, sell the homes and then, despite levying management charges, often fail to maintain the essential infrastructure that residents rely on every day, whether that is roads, drainage systems, which we have just heard about, or shared green spaces. I have seen this at first hand in the experience of residents of Moorside Drive, a development by Gleeson Homes. My constituent Daniel first contacted me in July last year after purchasing his home in October 2024, when he had been assured that the outstanding works would be completed by March 2025. That deadline slipped to the spring, and then the summer; as things stand, residents have yet to receive any meaningful communication about when the work will finally be completed. The problems they are facing are significant: the road serving the estate has deteriorated and remains unfinished; the shared green spaces that were promised as part of the development have still not been delivered; and commitments to enhance and protect biodiversity have yet to be fulfilled. Communication with residents has also fallen well below an acceptable standard. Daniel tells me that he was given no notice before work began directly outside his family home, and I have heard that traffic management measures were not properly put in place during other works, creating unnecessary disruption and safety concerns. Landscaping, meanwhile, cannot be completed until the roads are finished, and unresolved drainage issues continue to affect a number of residents on the estate. This is not like being sold a faulty item that can simply be returned to the shop. These are people’s homes—the places where they expect to build their lives, raise their families and feel secure. When developers and management companies fail to honour their commitments, it is residents who are left living with the consequences. That is why reform and regulation is so important. Homeowners deserve transparency, accountability and effective regulation of the companies responsible for managing their estates. As we have heard already this afternoon, homeowners should not have to fight for basic standards of maintenance or chase endlessly for information about works that should have been completed months earlier. I very much welcome the work of this Labour Government to strengthen the rights of people living on managed estates. These reforms have the potential to deliver greater fairness, improve accountability and ensure that homeowners receive the standards of service they have paid for. People who invest in a home deserve confidence that those responsible for maintaining their communities will fulfil their obligations. It is only right that we continue to strengthen protections for homeowners, and ensure that managing agents and developers are held to account.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Dame Siobhain. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster) for securing this debate on such an important issue. I also commend him on sharing his own personal experience with his diagnosis of a congenital heart defect. I thought, as he was speaking, that it just goes to show that we should never judge solely based on how someone presents on the outside, because we never know what is going on inside; I know he served in the Royal Engineers, and he is also very fit and active. He rightly highlighted why this Government are determined to tackle cardiovascular disease head on through earlier prevention and diagnosis, because that is what is really going to make the difference. I also thank all hon. Members for their valuable contributions this afternoon. It is clear that far too many lives are still being cut short by cardiovascular disease. In recent years, heart disease and stroke caused around 33,000 premature deaths per year, and it is the second leading cause of death in England after cancer. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) gave a powerful speech, bringing this issue into stark focus with regard to Northern Ireland. I have to say, I share his pleasure in spending so much time in these important debates in Westminster Hall; he and I are usually the common denominator. I want to refer to some of the things that he said, specifically about the ticking time bomb that cardiovascular disease can be. He mentioned that 225,000 people—one in 10—in Northern Ireland live with heart and circulatory conditions. That was very sobering; this is not a niche condition at all. He said that it accounted for 24% of deaths in Northern Ireland—one in four—and that most of those were premature. As always, I will commit to ensuring that key learnings and best practice are shared between both our health services and, indeed, with the other devolved Administrations. I always learn a lot from the hon. Member’s contributions, so I thank him for them. That is why, as part of our 10-year health plan for the NHS, we have committed to shifting from sickness to prevention and to ensuring that fewer lives are lost to the biggest killers, including cardiovascular disease. I have made so many notes, but the trick is now whether I can find the right note for the right person and not just forget about them all; I am trying to be too clever for my own boots here. The hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) who speaks for the Lib Dems, spoke a lot about prevention and about the shift from treatment and sickness to prevention. She asked me whether the public health grant would go back to 2010 levels. I cannot commit to that. Obviously, something did happen in 2010 and, as much as I like and admire the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew), there were big cuts to the public health grant—although I think the biggest cut was in 2015. However, we have provided the first three-year public health grant settlement in over a decade. That will give surety and confidence to the local authorities and public health directors in all our areas for the three years.
Right, the hon. Lady said 2015. I am being too clever for my own boots. I wrote down 2010, but of course, as I said in correcting myself, the big cut was in 2015. I am pleased that the hon. Lady has corrected the record for us all. As I say, we have set an ambitious goal to reduce premature mortality from heart disease and stroke in the under-75s by a quarter in the next 10 years. As part of the first wave of the new generation of modern service frameworks, we will publish a cardiovascular disease modern service framework soon. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble asked me about that, and I shall move on to answer his questions. He asked when; the answer is soon. The Department and NHS England have engaged widely to consider a range of conditions that are most likely to drive progress on the Government’s ambition and the CVD MSF—if Members do not mind me using the acronym to save words—will set out 12 high impact priority action areas, descriptions of how unwarranted variation should be addressed and a road map for the next 10 years. The framework will be backed by clear accountability and routine monitoring of progress using existing NHS performance and oversight arrangements. To support the delivery of the framework across the system, we will launch a series of ambitious strategic partnerships between Government, the NHS, industry and the voluntary sector. We thank the British Heart Foundation for its support and participation as a task and finish group member for the CVD MSF. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble asked about type 2 diabetes. I pay tribute to and thank his friend Jared, who is with us today, and who I am aware is a type 1 diabetic. Type 2 diabetes is very prevalent in cardiovascular disease. We are taking steps to reduce overall prevalence of type 2 diabetes by supporting programmes such as the NHS health check and the highly effective “Healthier You” NHS diabetes prevention programme. I will talk more about obesity prevention and the obesogenic environment if I have time. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble asked me about cholesterol. We know that addressing raised cholesterol is key to preventing CVD. Statins cut CVD risk in just four to six weeks, and are readily available and quite cheap, as interventions go. As of December 2025, 85% of people with CVD were being treated with cholesterol-lowering therapy, including statins, across England. He also asked me about arterial fibrillation. The Government recognise the importance of optimising arterial fibrillation treatment. As of December 2025, 92% of those with high-risk arterial fibrillation were being treated with anticoagulants, which was an increase from 87% in March 2020.
As with all medication, it is obviously up to GPs to consider side effects when prescribing. Some side effects might be apparent sooner rather than later, but they are definitely conversations that patients need to have closely and quickly with prescribers and GPs. I encourage all constituents to be cognisant of side effects and not just hope that they will go away or that they do not matter. They should always be raised with their GP. The modern service framework, which is coming soon, will identify and set standards for the best-evidenced interventions to support consistent, high-quality and equitable care across the cardiovascular disease pathway. It will set out an ambitious vision for the future, identifying areas where further progress is needed to build the evidence base or to accelerate innovations to deliver best outcomes for patients. We know that there are unacceptable inequalities across CVD prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care. That is why the CVD MSF will set out strategic priorities and a clear direction on what health and care systems should focus on to drive improvement and outcomes and to tackle unwarranted variation. A number of hon. Members have highlighted prevention issues and I will address their questions at this point. We know that around 70% of the CVD burden is preventable and due to risk factors that can be modified by behaviour changes, early identification and management, so the early detection of risk factors is key. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee), who is no longer in his place, made a short but colourful point about access to fresh food and food deserts. He mentioned that in some parts of the country, it is easier to get vodka than a banana. I have used a similar analogy with regard to blueberry vapes versus blueberries. We all know of places like that across our constituencies. The Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Mid Sussex, also mentioned access to healthy food for young people living in poverty and free school meals being extended to those children. The Government are extending free school meals to all children of families on universal credit from September, and that is very welcome. We are already extending breakfast clubs so that they are universal. That will be reaching all children; not all children take advantage of them, but there will eventually be access to them for all children in our primary schools. A lot of the work that I have been doing in the Department since taking up this post has been around my passion. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) mentioned the work that we have done together in the all-party parliamentary group on school food. That group was set up in 2010—I know the date, and I am not going to get it wrong, because I set it up. Healthy food is so crucial. As we are rolling out breakfast clubs and rolling out free school meals to all children of families on universal credit, we want that food to be as healthy as can be. That is why we had the consultation on new school food standards, which closed in June. They will be in force from September 2027. They will be a lot better, a lot more stringent, than the current standards. I hope that, when they are made public, all hon. Members will be able to buy into them and therefore encourage the perception to change. I think my hon. Friend also said that the perception of school food needs to change, and I totally agree. Come next year, school food will be so much better—it already is in so many of our schools. As a local MP, I am a bit obsessive about going into my local schools, or whatever school I happen to be in, so much so that it got a bit embarrassing—I will tell this quick anecdote, if I have time. I was visiting a school, and it said that it would get me some sandwiches from a well-known store—I will not advertise the store, but this was pre-packed sandwiches from a nice, upmarket supermarket—because my secretary had said, “Oh, make sure Sharon gets some lunch.” I had to point out to the headteacher that I did not want the nice sandwiches from Marks & Spencer, and that I actually wanted to stay for lunch with the children in the canteen. I was there to visit and talk about whatever, or to meet the school council, but I would always do those things either side of the lunch break in order that, with my school food APPG chair hat on, I could stay for lunch. My lovely secretary at the time had not explained that bit, so the headteacher, on her way into work that day, had rushed to a well-known supermarket to buy me a selection of sandwiches. I was mortified, so I say to hon. Members that, if they want to eat on their school visits, they should please ensure that they are clear that they do not just want any old sandwiches bought, and that actually they want to sit and eat with the children. School food is important. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. There is more good, and I hope that it will continue to improve, because good habits need to start early. I am talking about the prevention that we all want to see and the healthier lifestyles that we want for the next generation. It is a manifesto commitment of this Government to have the healthiest generation of children ever. That starts in our health service, but it also starts with prevention, and the move from sickness to prevention. I think the hon. Member for Mid Sussex mentioned junk food advertising, and the other thing that I have been working on is the new nutrient profiling model. The consultation on that has just closed. We are going to be using the new NPM when it is agreed and announced. It will be applied to the junk food ad ban, which is already in place, and we will set out next steps with regard to that in due course. We are also planning work on monitoring and reporting on the healthy food standards. All that is in train, and I am very keen on continuing to do that work, but who knows what might come? I will now turn to points from other hon. Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport mentioned walking and that he had lost 4 lbs during the recent by-election; it seems to me that maybe what we all need is more by-elections—or perhaps not. The serious point is that we all need to be walking more. If we are walking more, that is good, but we need to be walking briskly. We are supposed to get out of breath and a bit hot and bothered. It is also important that we are trying to eat healthier food.
Very good. I must apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) for getting his constituency name wrong. I cannot read my own writing—I do know that Southport and Stockport are very different places. Walking is important, but we must work hard to tackle the obesogenic environment, our propensity to eat ultra-processed food and the food deserts in our constituencies. Sadly, some of the most deprived areas are also the most health-unequal communities as well. That is not a coincidence; one leads to the other. That is an area of the Department’s work I am massively focused on. The right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) spoke about his wonderful wife of two decades, who is a lead neuroradiographer—
Very good. She works at Queen’s hospital in east London, and I was very interested to hear about the “bring your husband to work” day, although I am glad she did not keep the right hon. Gentleman there. What he described sounded fascinating, although not for the faint-hearted, as he said. On behalf of the NHS and the Government, I thank Olivia and her team for the outstanding work they do every day and for their service and skill. It is such important work. He asked me about the role of mechanical thrombectomy, which he said has been used for less than a decade. The NHS is working to increase thrombectomy rates as a key intervention to improve patient outcomes, so hopefully Olivia is going to be as busy as ever. He is rightly proud of her, as I am sure she is of him.
My private office will have made note of that. I would be happy to pay a visit to the hospital and am interested to look at that work. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire asked about ambulance wait times. NHS England is working with East Midlands ambulance service to support improvements in response times, which will increase frontline ambulance availability, improve productivity and strengthen performance. I can assure her that that work is under way. In England, the NHS health check for individuals aged 40 to 74 is designed to assess the top risk factors for cardiovascular disease and refer people to further support where appropriate. The NHS health check is wide reaching it engages more than 1.4 million people a year and, through behavioural and clinical interventions, prevents around 500 heart attacks or strokes a year. We know that there is more to do to improve uptake of the health check. As part of our efforts to make the shift from analogue to digital, we are developing the NHS health check online and increasing the flexibility of the programme so that people can complete it at home at a time more convenient to them. Finding and supporting people with undetected high blood pressure early is, as a number of colleagues mentioned, critical to preventing heart attacks and strokes. I think we can all remember the former shadow Health Secretary, Jonathan Ashworth. He had undiagnosed high blood pressure and recently had a heart attack. We cannot just assume, from what someone looks like on the outside, what is going on inside. It is so important that we all take up those health checks when we reach the grand old age of 40, which I have not yet reached myself—I see my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) laughing; he must think I am over 40. We have invested heavily in blood pressure checks in community pharmacy so that we take up those opportunities for detection in the community. Over the last year in England, 82% of pharmacies were delivering the service, with more than 3 million blood pressure checks taking place. We are also committed to tackling obesity, and have made significant progress by restricting junk food advertising targeted at children on TV and online, along with banning volume price reductions on less healthy products. NHS England has expanded access to the NHS digital weight management service, doubling the number of people supported. Some 1 million adults in England with established CVD who are overweight or living with obesity are also now eligible for semaglutide—Wegovy—to reduce major cardiovascular events. We have taken firm action on smoking, including the landmark Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, which will protect future generations from the harms of smoking. To help people quit smoking, we have also ringfenced funding for stop smoking services in the public health grant, protecting at least £150 million per year. Our work does not stop there. I have mentioned the shift from treatment to prevention, incentivising earlier identification and better management of CVD risk. The elective reform plan committed to modernising cardiology pathways, and we are working closely with clinicians to implement reforms, ensuring that care is delivered in the right place and at the right time. We have an ambitious target to reduce premature mortality from heart disease and stroke by 25%, and the CVD MSF will provide the tools required to achieve this. The shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Daventry, raised the women’s health strategy. He is right to mention the disparity in women’s diagnosis and treatment. The renewed women’s health strategy sets out how we will redesign services, improve diagnosis and embed women’s voices so that care improves across all conditions. Priority examples where women are most poorly served are included, and progress will be judged against three overarching measures of success, the main one being to reduce the amount of time that women spend in poor health. I will finish here so that there is time for my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble to make some closing remarks. I again thank him for bringing this important matter to the House.
I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of reducing levels of premature deaths from heart disease and stroke. It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank hon. Members for attending the debate. Cardiovascular disease remains one of the United Kingdom’s biggest killers and one of the greatest public health challenges facing our country. It devastates families, communities and livelihoods in every corner of the UK. It has touched countless families, including my own. My challenge is not cardiovascular disease but a congenital heart defect— a silent killer that was diagnosed last year following a routine health check. I am still completely symptom-free, but will have to have open heart surgery to replace my aortic valve at some point. I am, however, in the very safe hands of the NHS. Today is about ensuring that the voices of those living with cardiovascular conditions are heard in the House, but it is also about something even more fundamental. For the first time in more than half a century, we have seen progress on cardiovascular disease moving in the wrong direction. The question before us today is simple: are we willing to accept that, or are we prepared to tackle it? With the right political will and the right action, we can once again make the UK a country in which fewer people die young from heart disease and stroke. The debate also comes at a significant moment for the British Heart Foundation. That charity, which was founded in July 1961, marks this month 65 years of funding lifesaving research. I am pleased that representatives of the foundation are here with us today, and I thank them all for the crucial support that they continue to champion and deliver day after day. Let me move on to the scale of the challenge that we face. CVD is responsible for about 170,000 deaths each year in the UK—that is more than one quarter of all recorded annual deaths—with one life lost every three minutes. Put simply, while we hold the debate this afternoon, about 30 lives could be lost to CVD—let that sink in. More than 8 million people across the country are living with CVD, with many waiting for vital care, and many more living with conditions that increase their risk of CVD or a cardiac event. Yet much of that burden is not inevitable; it is preventable. About 70% of CVD cases in the UK are linked to modifiable factors such as obesity and smoking, alongside manageable risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. While I am on the subject of diabetes, it is great to see one of my closest friends, Mr Jared Fox, sitting in the Public Gallery. This is also very personal for Jared, a type 1 diabetic who, back in 2018, suffered three heart attacks linked to his diabetes, resulting in his undergoing a triple heart bypass. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as the saying goes, and Jared is sitting with us now and smiling away, but I believe that, as a diabetic at higher risk, he should have undergone screening, not been left to get almost to the point of dying, unaware of the increased risks that he faced. British Heart Foundation analysis shows that, despite decades of progress, premature deaths from CVD have been rising again for the first time in more than half a century. That should concern every single Member of the House. The cost is not just measured in lives; CVD also has a major economic impact, costing the UK an estimated £12 billion in direct healthcare each year and costing the wider economy about £30 billion. CVD is also a stark reminder of health inequalities in the UK today as well. People in our most deprived communities are still far more likely to die prematurely from CVD than those living in the most affluent areas. That is just not acceptable.
I absolutely agree. If we could get fresh food to more of our communities and young people, it would have a massive positive effect on dealing with CVD—that must be dealt with. This debate could not be more timely. The Government have rightly identified CVD as one of the UK’s biggest killers, and have set a welcome ambition to reduce premature deaths from heart disease and stroke by 25% over the next decade. Parliament has a responsibility not just to welcome those commitments, but to scrutinise how they will be delivered. The forthcoming CVD modern service framework for England, which Ministers have said will be published soon, presents a rare opportunity to reset our approach to heart health, but the real question is whether it will be equal to the scale of the challenge before us. This debate is also an important opportunity to press the Government on what the framework will contain, how it will be implemented and whether it will deliver significant improvements in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care. Although the framework will focus on England, the challenge of CVD knows no borders. This is a UK-wide challenge, and the lessons, opportunities and ambitions that we discuss today must resonate across all four of our nations. Let me move on to the role of research and innovation. If CVD is one of our greatest challenges, research is one of our greatest opportunities. The remarkable progress made over the past six decades did not happen by accident; it happened thanks to charities such as the British Heart Foundation, great universities, researchers, clinicians and patients, who all worked together to transform outcomes. People like Jared are alive today thanks to research breakthroughs that were once thought impossible. The life sciences sector plan recognises the UK’s potential to be a world leader in research and innovation. Cardiovascular health must be at the heart of that ambition. From artificial intelligence and technology that can prevent and enable early diagnosis to the development of cutting-edge treatments and medicines, the United Kingdom has an opportunity not only to improve outcomes here at home, but to lead the world in tackling cardiovascular disease. I respectfully ask the Minister not to simply restate the Government’s ambition, but to detail how that ambition will become reality for the 8 million-plus people who are affected daily by cardiovascular disease. Let me ask some specific questions. First, when does the Minister think the modern service framework for CVD will be published? Secondly, how will the Government ensure that the framework is backed by clear delivery plans, accountability and measurable milestones, especially during a time of great challenge and change for the national health service? Thirdly, what action will be taken to improve prevention, early diagnosis and management of major risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and atrial fibrillation? Fourthly, how will the Government ensure that action on CVD reduces health inequalities? And fifthly, how will the Government work with devolved Administrations, researchers, charities, clinicians and patients to deliver progress across the entire United Kingdom? The UK has made significant progress on cardiovascular disease before, and we can do so again, but progress is not inevitable. It requires leadership, sustained investment and a laser focus on delivery. This is a pivotal moment, and we should all look to support the Government in their delivery of their cardiovascular ambition and to drive progress in heart health once more. I thank the Minister for setting out for us how the Government will turn their cardiovascular ambition into measurable action, tangible progress and, ultimately, the saving of thousands of lives.
I thank the Minister for giving me 50 seconds. This is one of those very rare topics where we have cross-party consensus from every party in the House: we all want the Government to be successful in what they seek to achieve, reducing deaths from stroke and cardiovascular disease by 25%. I thank the Minister for a very detailed response. I also thank the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew) for giving up his time and again giving a very detailed response. I thank the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and join in the tributes to his wife Olivia. I thank all other Members, and I thank Jared for sharing his story with us; he is now in Hansard. Finally, I thank the British Heart Foundation—please keep up the good work—and I thank you, too, Dame Siobhain, for giving up your time to chair this afternoon. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the matter of reducing levels of premature deaths from heart disease and stroke.
Ward Jackson primary school in Hartlepool has been named one of the top 10 schools in the world for overcoming adversity on behalf of their pupils. In the words of the award organiser, it is a school where “leaders refuse to let circumstance define what a child can become.” Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating pupils, families, governors and especially the extraordinary school staff at Ward Jackson on this brilliant achievement in leaving no child behind, which shows Hartlepool once again leading on the world stage?
From the moment I was elected in Hartlepool, my inbox, surgeries and public meetings were filled with people telling me remarkably similar and shocking stories about their estate management companies. That is what I wish to focus my remarks on. The tales are very similar: terrible communication, risible explanations and no accountability, but ever-rising bills. Ahead of this debate, I asked constituents to send me examples, and I was overwhelmed by the sheer number that I received, so I obviously cannot go through them all today. The stories came from Marine Point, the Longbranch estate, Wynyard Mews, St Mary’s Court and other estates across the town. One constituent, Andrew, highlighted the fundamental unfairness between estates adopted by the council and those left in private management: people can live just streets apart, pay the same council tax, and yet receive completely different levels of service. Derek asked me a simple question: why should he pay both Hartlepool borough council and Sela Management, when the council cannot carry out the work, because it has not adopted the estate, and the management company also appears unwilling to carry it out? It is an entirely fair question. Ray and Janice wish to put their property, which they own outright, into a living trust, yet they were delayed from doing so because Sela Management must first consent. They describe this as “medieval behaviour”. Jordan told me he was threatened over alleged unpaid invoices that he never received. The first meaningful communication was not an explanation; it was a demand. That is no way to treat people. When Helena bought her Longbranch home, she was told that as more families moved on to the estate, the costs would fall, because they would be shared more widely. The number of households has more than doubled. Her charges have not fallen; they have risen by more than £200. Kim described waiting months for basic repairs, only for residents to feel that the work that was eventually carried out was of poor quality. Others have shown me photographs of unfinished drains, damaged kerbs and maintenance left incomplete. These are not legal technicalities; they are the everyday experiences of ordinary families—people paying real money for work that they cannot see, cannot verify and simply do not believe has been carried out properly. My constituent Christine, whose property is managed by Kingston, told me that residents were collectively charged around £24,000 to repaint a block of flats on the headland. Within three months, the paint was already peeling. [Interruption.]
As I was saying, I welcome the Government’s commitment to leasehold reform, but Ministers must ensure that estate management companies are not treated as an afterthought. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 provides important powers that have not yet been brought into force, so I urge Ministers to do that. Estates do need to be managed, but we should go back to how they were managed: by local authorities. That is the way to truly fix the system: ensure that every estate is adopted by every council and drive these estate management companies into the dust where they belong.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) for securing the debate and for providing me with an opportunity to talk about the Lincolnshire police, which is where he started and so where I shall start as well. The hon. Member will be pleased to know that after years and years of underfunding for Lincolnshire police, we have secured a further £12 million a year in the first multi-year Lincolnshire police funding arrangement starting in January. I know that he will share my gladness in that arrangement. The hon. Member referred to a range of issues about which I will not pass comment, unless Madam Deputy Speaker wishes to instruct me otherwise, including the conduct of other hon. Members in this House and what sounds like a private law dispute with the company in question. Let me turn to some of the substantive questions he raised in relation to the contract. I was pleased to see the hon. Member briefly earlier today and I am happy to discuss some of his questions in person, which may be easier. I agree with the hon. Member that of course the Government must spend money diligently in support of UK interests and in a way that delivers value for taxpayers. I disagree with his assertion that the award of the contract under discussion does not align with those principles, so I will say a little about the contract and about Lebanon, and then I will seek to wind up. The Foreign Office currently has one contract with Siren Associates and it is subject to formal commercial oversight. As the hon. Member says, it is part of the overall ISF programme. As he knows, it is to deliver the internal security assistance programme in Lebanon to support Lebanon’s internal security forces, and to help them become more trusted, professional and better able to address Lebanon’s internal security challenges. I have seen some of our work in Lebanon. It is precisely aimed at the issues he alluded to. We must see in Lebanon the security forces of Lebanon in control of the whole country, not Lebanese Hezbollah, a group that he rightly identifies as a terrorist group proscribed in this country. The programme supports better planning, stronger police operations, improved co-ordination with the Lebanese armed forces, including in the South Litani Sector, which the hon. Member will know is the area that has been the subject of so much discussion in recent months. It is part of Britain’s wider efforts to promote stability in a highly volatile region, something that is firmly in the UK’s interests. I have seen for myself in the South Litani Sector the difference this support is making. As this House is aware, and as the hon. Member alluded to, Lebanon faces an extremely challenging security situation. The actions of Hezbollah have dragged Lebanon once again into a conflict that neither its people nor its Government have sought. We have been clear that Hezbollah’s reprehensible attacks on communities in northern Israel must cease, but disproportionate Israeli military action in Lebanon has displaced over a million people and caused significant loss of life. It is in that context that we seek to help. For all these reasons, it is vital that Lebanon’s legitimate security institutions are able to exercise state sovereignty across the country and provide security to Lebanese citizens. The UK has been a close partner of the Lebanese armed forces and internal security forces since 2009. We have provided training, equipment and advice to build their capability. That is important support to address key threats to Lebanon’s security. Turning to the contract currently underway with Siren, the Foreign Office’s procurement processes are designed to ensure that all programmes are subject to robust due diligence, that they deliver value for money and that they are aligned both with UK priorities and the interests of taxpayers, including those in Boston, Skegness and Lincoln. The contract with Siren Associates was awarded under the conflict, stability and security fund framework agreement, now known as the ISF framework agreement. It followed a competitive tender process and was open to around 80 suppliers, including a mixture of not-for-profit and commercial organisations. We received three tenders from interested suppliers, and each tender was checked for compliance with published instructions. Technical proposals were assessed against published criteria by a panel of subject matter experts, with scores moderated and agreed through a clear and documented process. Commercial submissions were evaluated separately using the published methodology, with pricing tested against affordability, framework limits, eligible cost rules and value for money considerations. Due diligence was a core part of that procurement process. That included conflict of interest checks, financial health reviews, sanctions screening and an assessment of delivery and commercial risks. The competitive process was also scrutinised by a commercial governance board, which approved the outcome before the contract was awarded. As I set out in my letter in January to the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness, the review of Siren Associates did not identify any areas that would prevent awarding the contract. The contract is currently valued at £17.2 million over three years—rather less than the increase to Lincolnshire police over the next three years, I am sure the hon. Member will be pleased to note. As he said, the contract began in September 2025 and runs until March 2028, and it can be extended until March 2030. Any further changes to the contract would be subject to a further rigorous assessment to ensure continued value for money. The hon. Member raises concerns about the size of payments to Siren Associates’ directors, reported in the company’s filed accounts. I have checked this question with the Department, and the Foreign Office’s understanding is that other than the fees for services rendered, there are no other payments to Siren Associates’ directors in its published accounts. The Foreign Office manages and monitors payments to Siren Associates for work conducted for the Foreign Office; however, we do not have oversight of transactions that do not relate to Foreign Office work. Let me be clear with the House that all relevant due diligence checks have been completed and deemed satisfactory. We will continue to keep the programme under close review, as we do with all Foreign Office programmes, to ensure that it delivers in full. We remain committed to supporting the Government of Lebanon and addressing threats to their security. Our long-standing work with the Lebanese armed forces and its internal security forces is a core part of that. That capability is central to maintaining security in Lebanon and preventing threats to the country, to the region and, ultimately, to the United Kingdom. I will conclude with three clear points. First, supporting Lebanon’s security is firmly in the UK’s national interest. Secondly, we believe the programme delivered by Siren Associates is a practical and important part of that effort. Thirdly, the contract was awarded to Siren Associates through a rigorous and proper process. Question put and agreed to.
14. What steps his Department is taking to help tackle late payments for small businesses.
Small businesses are at the heart of Altrincham and Sale West, and when I meet them, often alongside the Altrincham district improvement board, they tell me that one of the biggest problems they face is late payments. Can the Minister explain further how this Government’s action on mandatory interest rates and to force large firms to pay up within 60 days is a win for my high street?
I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and join him wholeheartedly in standing with the victims—those here and those who are not with us. As he said, it is another example of the perpetuation of abuse, because there was not just the initial abuse but the cover-up, the secondary abuse that followed, and the denial and the frustration for victims, their families and friends to get the truth. What more can he say about that and the culture change that can be embedded not just across the state but in every applicable institution, so that not only this stops happening but there is accountability where it does once again happen? I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) said about the Child Migrants Trust, which I worked with before coming to this place. I urge the Education Secretary to look at the work it has done on testimonials, because some of the experience there will be invaluable for victims if they want their stories to be told and recorded.
The Northampton-based McManus Pub Company runs 18 pubs and employs 370 people. I spoke to Tom McManus yesterday, who told me that successive Governments have ignored hospitality and that in the past five years business costs have made it harder for him to turn a profit. Tom has asked me to lobby the Government to cut VAT to 10%. What message does the Minister have for family businesses such as Tom’s?
8. What steps his Department is taking to support the creation of well-paid jobs in Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes constituency.
News of apprenticeship incentives, the youth jobs grant and the jobs guarantee will provide a welcome boost for my brilliant young people in Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, but they and other jobseekers will want to know what permanent jobs they can move into. We have huge opportunities and experience in new clean energy and the supply chain. What action is the Secretary of State taking to expand existing businesses and attract new investment in this sector to deliver jobs for my hard-working constituents?
Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Serhat Erdogan and his team on the successful opening of Cafe Victoria? He has taken on a long-empty shop in Grimsby town centre, which shows great confidence in the local economy of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes. The Government launched community auctions for empty shops; will the Leader of the House help me to get a Government statement on progress on community auctions?
Around 59% of children in the most deprived areas reach a good level of development by the time they start primary school compared with 79% in the least deprived areas. Babyzone is a charity set up to level the playing field by providing free-to-access community hubs that offer services to support children’s development. I recently had the privilege of opening Babyzone’s first Scottish hub in Easterhouse, which I know will make a real difference to local families. Will the Leader of the House join me in recognising Babyzone’s work, and will he consider allocating parliamentary time to debate how we can close the development gap between affluent and poorer neighbourhoods so that every child gets a fair start in life?
I start by declaring an interest: my wife is the joint chief executive of the Law Commission, whose work I will cite in the course of my remarks. It is a pleasure to respond to this vital debate on behalf of the Government, and I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) on securing it. Commonhold and leasehold reform and the regulation of property agents are issues of the utmost importance to millions of homeowners across the country, and I commend her and the Backbench Business Committee for giving the House an opportunity to debate them in detail. Let me briefly put on record once again my sincere thanks to her, the other members of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, and its Clerks for the huge amount of work undertaken in support of pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill. This has been an excellent debate, with many informed and passionate contributions, and I thank all hon. Members who have participated. Collectively, those contributions have served to reinforce both the complexities and challenges of leasehold reform and the strength of feeling that exists across the country in respect of the need to act boldly and urgently to provide relief to the millions of leaseholders and residential freeholders currently suffering as a result of unfair and unreasonable practices—and make no mistake: they are suffering. We have heard of some particularly egregious cases in this debate. What may seem like prosaic matters to many—service charges, ground rents, consent fees—are the source of acute financial hardship and misery for huge numbers of those living in one of the approximately 5 million leasehold dwellings in England and Wales. Let me be as clear as I can from the Dispatch Box: leaseholders are being routinely gouged by freeholders and managing agents acting on their behalf. They are being gouged as a result of a system that denies leaseholders control over the homes they live in and have paid for and subjects them to extraction in the form of punitive, escalating ground rents, unreasonable or extortionate charges, unjustified permissions and administration fees, and onerous conditions, often imposed with little or no consultation. I have said it many times before, and I will say it again: this is not what home ownership should entail. Leasehold is blighting lives. Leasehold is a barrier to a fair and efficient modern residential property market. Leasehold is an anachronism in the 21st century. The aim of this Government by the end of this Parliament is nothing short of dismantling it and bringing the corresponding emancipation of leaseholders. I will heed your strictures, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I do not have time to respond to all the specific points raised, such as points about freehold estates, service charges, development value and the retirement sector. Those were all well-made points, and, as ever, I am more than happy to speak to hon. Members outside of the Chamber. I assure the House that none of those issues are an afterthought. Where there are provisions in the 2024 Act, we are working at pace to take them forward; where there are issues outside of the draft Bill, such as freehold estates, we have consultations and are analysing feedback, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) knows. In our manifesto, we made a clear and unambiguous commitment to act where previous Governments had failed and finally bring the leasehold system to an end. The forthcoming commonhold and leasehold reform Bill is not the end of that story, but it is integral to honouring that manifesto commitment. As the Committee’s report rightly recognises, the draft legislation represents a significant step towards ending the leasehold system for good, delivering greater fairness for leaseholders while laying the foundations for a reinvigorated commonhold model. I am immensely grateful to the Committee for its detailed and thoughtful scrutiny of the draft Bill. Its report provides a valuable set of recommendations as we continue the process of augmenting, strengthening and refining the Bill for introduction. As my hon. Friend the Chair of the Committee knows, we are considering each of those recommendations carefully, and I hope we can report back in the not too distant future. I want to make some very brief remarks about commonhold and ground rent, but before I do, let me address the main issue that has been the subject of today’s debate, which is that of property managing agents and the Committee’s recommendation that we establish a new, independent public body as a regulator of them, with enforcement powers. I agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) and for Luton South and South Bedfordshire (Rachel Hopkins) and others who have mentioned the importance of control. I continue to believe that giving leaseholders control over the buildings they live in is our overriding priority, and that that will help to tackle the majority of abuses. However, I want to reassure hon. Members that I have listened and heard the serious concerns raised on both sides of the House about the performance of managing agents, both on freehold estates and in leasehold blocks—I know from my own caseload how serious these problems are. Managing agents play a key role in the maintenance of multi-occupancy buildings and freehold estates, and as the shadow Minister said, their importance will only grow as we transition towards a commonhold future. That is precisely why we have committed to strengthen the regulation of managing agents. As hon. Members know—it has been mentioned several times—the previous Government committed in 2018 to regulate the property agents sector. It asked a working group chaired by Lord Best, who I am very pleased to see in the Gallery, to advise them on how to do it, yet over multiple years they failed to act on that report’s findings. We have already progressed work on a number of those recommendations, including mandatory professional qualifications. However, I will state candidly that in taking forward those and other measures designed to strengthen the regulation of managing agents, we have a choice about how we do so. We face those choices in the context of a substantive Bill that is already around 260 clauses and 20 schedules and could grow further, and the fact that we have made very clear—I stress this point again to hon. Members—that this is not the only piece of legislation required to meet our manifesto commitments. Other pieces of primary legislation are required, not least to enact the remaining Law Commission recommendations on enfranchisement and the right to manage. I want to make it clear, though, that I take very seriously the Committee’s recommendation of a new independent regulator. I am certainly not going to stand at the Dispatch Box and rule one out—indeed, I am personally extremely sympathetic to it—but we will set our overarching position on the regulation of estate, letting and managing agents in due course. I can assure hon. Members that in finalising that position, we will continue to consider all aspects of Lord Best’s report. I can feel your eyes upon me, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I am going to skirt over commonhold—I am more than happy to speak to any hon. Members who have particular concerns about that—and speak briefly about ground rents. In particular, I want to touch on the decision the Government made in the draft Bill. We committed in our manifesto to “tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rent charges”, and we are delivering on that commitment through the Bill. As hon. Members know, the draft Bill will cap ground rents at £250 a year initially, changing to a peppercorn after 40 years. This will deliver immediate relief for hundreds of thousands of leaseholders during this Parliament, and over the lifetime of that policy position, it will save leaseholders between £10 billion and £12.7 billion. It is a significant intervention. After 40 years, all ground rents will change to a peppercorn, ensuring that they are brought to an end in their entirety. However, it is our view that a 40-year transitional period is necessary to avoid unintended consequences and ensure stability for leaseholders and the wider property market. This is a balanced and fair solution to the problems caused by unaffordable, unregulated ground rents. I agree with my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee that the cap must be introduced as soon as possible, so that leaseholders can benefit from reduced costs and more easily access mortgage financing when looking to move home. Subject to parliamentary timings, we are seeking to introduce the ground rent cap by 2028 at the latest. That is not the end of 2028—it is a point in time in 2028 at the latest—but I want to stress the words “at the latest”. It is up to this House to ensure that pieces of legislation progress more quickly. Before concluding, I can helpfully clarify the answer to the very specific question that the shadow Minister put to me. There is no ambiguity about the fixes that need to be made to the 2024 Act. It is really unfortunate that we have to make fixes to that Act. We should not be repairing primary legislation through new primary legislation, but we confirmed in the King’s Speech on 13 May that fixes to those flaws will be included in the forthcoming substantive Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill. To conclude, I once again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green for applying for this debate, the Backbench Business Committee for granting it, and all those who have participated in it for sharing their concerns, insights and case studies. I look forward to providing the Committee with a formal response to its report as quickly as we possibly can—notwithstanding the current constraints—and I look forward to continued engagement with the Committee as our substantive Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill progresses and as we continue to implement those reforms to the leasehold system that are already in statute.
My hon. Friend talks about leaseholders being treated with contempt. I have an estate in my constituency, Bishops Gate, where it took three years for FirstPort to respond to residents’ requests, and even when the council got involved, FirstPort refused its request. Given all the service charges they had paid in, the homeowners believed that there would be £230,000 in the account; in fact, there is zero, and they are told that there is £60,000 of debt. That is the sort of scam that is going on.
This Government have rightly made capital investment decisions for the long term. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital to properly plan further education provision with the skills and jobs needed for long-term growth in infrastructure?