Notes on devolution

This past week or so has been one in which devolution of housing has cropped up, raising some odd little things.  Three odd little things, actually: leasehold reform; Awaab’s law; compulsory purchase orders.  Have a guess which one won’t apply in Wales.

Leasehold reform

First, housing has been devolved to Wales but not property law.  That has always been a remarkably odd thing to have done/not done, and probably constrained housing law reform.  However, it also means that leasehold reform is achieved from Westminster.  And, there has been movement by the Westminster/UK government which promises in a White Paper to rectify the deficiencies about the commonold system, so that it can drive us towards that promised land and awsay from the leasehold tenure (wrongly, I think, described as feudal, although you can see why it is so described).  This will affect Welsh leasehold tenure (see this useful report about the sale and use of leasehold tenure in Wales).  This was a major win for those leasehold reform campaigners who have worked steadfastly over many, many years – well, more like a staging post on the way to the promised land (which may prove not to be full of milk and honey, but that’s another story) – and they gave it a cautious welcome, particularly because there have been lots of consultations over many, many years.

Commonhold is promised to be a “radical improvement” on leasehold, and follows work by the Law Commission for England and Wales (started many years ago as far as I know – they were talking about it when I worked as a research assistant there in 1990).  By now, readers will know that I am a cynic.  My view on commonhold is that the grass is never greener on the other side, just a different shade of green.  But, it is the future.

Awaab’s law

Following a reader’s query (for which, thank you :)) about whether Awaab’s law was going to be implemented in Wales, I have conducted a little research (and, possibly, ‘phoned a friend to check that my understanding was correct).  Awaab’s law followed the death of Awaab Ishak, a child, as a result of prolonged exposure to damp and mould in his home.  If you listen to Dan Hewitt’s The Trapped podcast (recommended), there is a heartbreaking episode where Gove visited the family and committed to doing something about it.  The problem was seen to be that there was no time limits for action by social housing providers to respond to specified hazards in the home.  The Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023 gave the MHCLG the power to lay regulations specifying such timescales.  They have now done so, albeit in a phased way, and, from October this year, social landlords will have to investigate and fix dangerous damp and mould within a set amount of time as well as repair all emergency hazards within 24 hours.

However, as this is housing law, it will only apply in England and not Wales, unless the Welsh Government decide to implement it.  I have not seen any indication that they do intend to do so.  Given the reverberations of Coastal 1, and the costs to the sector of Awaab’s law (causing some concerns to English RSLs), that may be a rational response; but, one wonders how long they will be able to hold out, particularly when Westminster might be construed as being ahead of the game.

Compulsory purchase orders

Sometimes, life can be a bit too short, and, to be honest, I am not wildly interested in CPOs.  I have tried to find the place from which The Guardian got their exclusive that local authorities in England and Wales will be given greater powers to exercise CPOs to build affordable housing ; but, I can’t find it (there is now an helpful Inside Housing report about the Bill).  There is an MHCLG press release rebutting farmer representative organisation claims that they will be forced to sell their land (classic).  Anyway, the point is that Westminster appears to have the power to do this for Wales too, and has done so in their Procurement and Infrastructure Bill  presented to Parliament on Tuesday this week.

Conclusion

Devolution is weird and wonderful in equal measure, throwing up delightful anomalies in our area as a result of the choices made about what should be devolved.  There was an interesting Bluesky thread by Will Hayward about the Crown Estate and devolution – although that’s not quite on point, it’s worth reading.