My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill now be read a second time. In doing so, I pay tribute to my honourable friend Sir Christopher Chope, MP for Christchurch, who had the wisdom and foresight to choose a Bill that the Government would support and skilfully steered it through the other place in record time. I also record my thanks to the officials who have facilitated its drafting.
This is a very short but effective Bill and I am very pleased that I have been asked to help secure its passage through the House. Its primary objective is to bring fairness to park home residents, most of whom live on low, fixed incomes. The Bill will also make a positive contribution towards addressing the cost of living crisis that many people in this country face, including, of course, park home residents.
Clause 1 amends Part 1 of Schedule 1 of the Mobile Homes Act 1983 to change the inflationary index used by site owners to increase pitch fees from the retail prices index, the RPI, to the lower consumer prices index, CPI. Mobile home residents pay their site owner a pitch fee for the right to occupy a pitch on the site. Pitch fees can be reviewed annually to allow site owners to recover increases in their costs for maintaining and repairing the site, due to inflation. There is a presumption in the Mobile Homes Act 1983 that any increase in pitch fees will be no more than the inflation index defined in the Act. The inflation index is currently defined as the RPI.
RPI is generally higher than other inflationary indices and is no longer used as a measure of inflation. It is not surprising, therefore, that mobile home residents, the majority of whom are elderly, have been concerned that their incomes, which generally increase by CPI, would not keep up with the rise in pitch fees. It therefore seems grossly unfair that this group, who are, as I have already said, mainly elderly and who need the most help, must face pitch fee increases that are higher than the increases in their incomes, and higher than the increases in costs faced by site owners. The Bill will change this by changing the inflationary index from RPI to the lower CPI. The change from RPI to CPI will also apply to permanent pitches on Gypsy and Traveller sites owned by local authorities. Occupiers of those pitches have agreements under the Mobile Homes Act 1983 and will therefore benefit from these important changes, as well as those on private sites.
Clause 2 sets out how the change to CPI will affect the calculation of new pitch fees. I thank and commend the Government for their determination in ensuring that the changes will apply not only to new agreements but to all existing agreements. Noble Lords will know that, save in very few and rare cases, legislation is not usually applied retrospectively. However, if that had been allowed to happen in this case, tens of thousands of residents would not benefit from this important change, at a time when they need it most.
In terms of how the change will affect the calculation of new pitch fees, site owners are required to serve a pitch fee review notice and a form at least 28 days before the review date, which is when the proposed increases take effect. For pitch fee notices issued between now and when the provisions of the Bill would come into effect, RPI would be used in the calculation of the
proposed pitch fee. Pitch fee review notices served on or after the day on which the Act comes into force must use CPI in the calculation. If a site owner fails to or does not use the new pitch fee review form, which will be available before the changes come into force, the pitch fee review process will be invalid.
The Bill includes an important protection for residents: it prevents any differences in income for site owners from the change from RPI to CPI, whether real or anticipated, being passed on to residents through the pitch fee. Some owners, I am afraid, constantly find loopholes and unscrupulous methods financially to exploit vulnerable residents. Clause 2 prevents this. It provides that, where a dispute about pitch fees is being determined by the First-tier Tribunal, and the tribunal is satisfied that the site owner has included an amount to compensate them for the financial loss arising from the RPI to CPI change, it will be required to deem the relevant amount to be unreasonable and remove it from the pitch fee. If the Bill is passed, as I very much hope it will be, I count on the Government to make residents aware of this important protection to ensure that they can enforce their rights against unscrupulous site owners who attempt to pass on any unfair charges to them.
If I may add a request of my own to this worthy Bill, it is that the Government stay the course and build on what has been achieved over the last 10 years following the introduction of the Mobile Homes Act 2013, which the noble Lord, Lord Best, successfully steered through this House. In 2013, that Act gave local authorities substantial enforcement powers to tackle those site owners who fail to maintain their sites properly and put residents’ lives at risk. It also gave residents important new rights and reformed the process for selling homes, making site rules and reviewing pitch fees. Those changes have brought significant improvements to the sector.
In their response to the review conducted in 2017, the Government committed to improve the rights of residents and strengthen local authority enforcement powers further. They have made significant progress in implementing these commitments, in spite of the challenges they have faced recently with issues such as Brexit, Covid, et cetera. However, more can and should be done to improve fairness for residents in this small but important sector of the housing market.
I have no doubt that noble Lords present today, and residents in particular, would like to see other provisions included in the Bill. While I share these concerns, the aim of the Bill is to ensure that the many vulnerable park home residents on low incomes are supported at this critical time, when so many people are struggling with current costs. For the reasons I have set out, the Bill addresses only the specific issue of changing the inflationary index used in pitch fee reviews from RPI to the lower CPI. Including any other measures in the Bill at this stage would not only risk its successful passage through both Houses in this Session but leave residents in the unfair position they find themselves in for even longer. It is important that they receive the benefits of the change from RPI to
CPI now, to help with the current cost of living pressures and provide them with the necessary additional support that they need. I beg to move.
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