Harry Scoffin and Michael Gove dominate the two hour session of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Angela Rayner clearly is held back by her responsibility to tow the line and the freeholders by and large did not turn up.

The main issue that the freeholders are concerned about (as represented by a barrister they hired) is to protect the current obscene ground rates.  This includes keeping the chance for leaseholders  to buy the freehold out to a minimum by allowing the freeholder to value the development value of the land to whatever the freeholder concocts.

Government is clearly in the hands of those who represent the freeholders who have managed to limit the reduction of ground rents to maintain £250 per annum per leasehold and to extend the period this can be run off to 40 years rather the immediate switch to peppercorn that the Labour party ran in their manifesto as their promise if elected.

And the Government has used regulation of Management Agents as a diversionary tactic, much promoted by Angela Rayner but scoffed at by Harry Scoffin who rightly points out that regulators do not have a history of getting on top of such nefarious and numerous groups as groups of management agents.

For Scoffin, the only way to control management agents is to put leaseholders in charge. In my block we have recently sacked one managing agent and replaced with a managing agent we chose. This is rare , it is rare that leaseholders can be in charge of their own management. I am in agreement with Harry on everything and so is Michael Gove and even Angela Raynor!

Here for those with little time is Harry’s efforts, giving the truth about Labour and Tory games. It is not often that Westminster here’s a better performance than Harry’s.

For those who are lovers of pensions as a force for good, I must warn them against the misuse of “pensions” to defend ground rents by Charmaine, the young and articulate barrister chosen by the freeholders who didn’t turn up in person. You can find her iniquities on the long video at the bottom of this blog- at around 45 minutes.

She was pulled up by the MPs in the room who know that the total investment of residential property into UK retirement plans is less than 1% and that only a part of this tiny amount is into freeholds. It is mainly in SSAS and SIPPs owned by wealthy people, it is not a feature of DB and DC workplace pensions and (apart from the Church of England’s legacy) I have been able to find no instances of it. John Chilman at Pensions UK refused to endorse the investment of pension funds in something so unethical as Ground Rents which break all the rules of ESG.

But the freeholders argue that we should allow ground rents to support our pension system! That’s poppycock!

To suppose that the likes of Grosvenor Estates who were invited but didn’t come to yesterday’s session are examples of governance is equally – that’s poppycock too!

At the bottom of the blog,  is a video of the two hours of the event, watch it all if you have the time. If you want to watch Gove and Raynor’s section then watch this clip -very entertaining it is.

The video clip doesn’t include Raynor. I like Angela Raynor and I can see she is torn between supporting Gove who is with Harry Scoffin and Government by her political party.

But while this is fun politics, it is not the substance of this two hour session. I hope that the MPs on this committee are not distracted by the politics of trying to govern Managing Agents through big Government and will leave that to leaseholders, common holders and most certainly not freeholders!

There will be attempts to stop reform- brought by freeholders we neither hear nor see. They will continue to reduce leaseholder’s cash in bank and re-sale value of their flats;- all so they can get ground rent for nothing.

The aim will be to push the bill currently under discussion out and into a future parliament from where it can be kicked further still into the future (as they managed in the 2024 wash-out). It is clear that the freeholders will use seemingly friendly barristers to deliver nonsense in defence of Ground Rents but it is also clear that so long as we have the likes of Harry from the younger generation and Gove at the other end of those who work, we will have valiant resistance. Well done both. Here is the video of the entire morning

Harry Scoffin starts at 28.17 minutes