[2025] EWHC 2751 (Admin)

The Portal Trust explained its position and concerns in consultations with the Law Commission and the Government. Its submissions on this challenge largely reflect the submissions previously made.

In the Consultation Paper, the Law Commission discussed restricting existing enfranchisement rights so far as commercial leaseholders were concerned, while recognising a number of risks and difficulties in doing so ([8.185]-[8.186]). One possible means of achieving that end which was identified was the reintroduction of a residence test, together with a limit on the number of units in a building which “would inevitably be somewhat arbitrary” but on which their “current thinking … is that the maximum should be set at around four. Having more units than this would tend to indicate that the premises in practice operate as a commercial investment even if the landlord happens to live in one of the units” ([8.188]).

Portal sought to rely in this regard on a passage from the Parliamentary debates on the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, for the purpose of identifying the objects of the LFRA 2024. We do not accept that reference to statements in the course of the passing of another Act, with different objects, different language, and at an earlier point in time, is permissible for the purposes of identifying the objects of the LFRA 2024, or for applying the proportionality balance in relation to the LFRA 2024. We accept the submissions of the Speaker’s counsel that this is not a permissible use of Hansard. In ALR Annex B at [83] states:

“The question in Wilson was whether it was permissible for a court considering the Convention compatibility of an Act of Parliament to consider statements made during the passage of the Bill about its aims and objectives. It was in that context that Lord Nicholls said that it may be necessary to look outside the statute ‘in order to see the complete picture’, including ‘the nature and extent of the social problem (the 'mischief') at which the legislation is aimed and that, if information relevant to these matters had been provided by a minister or other member ‘in the course of a debate on a Bill’, the courts must be able to take it into account, subject to strict caveats: see [61]-[64] and [66]-[67]. In our judgment, these passages apply only to statements made during the passage of the Bill which became the Act whose compatibility is in issue, and not to other parliamentary statements relied upon by one side or other in support of a submission on a contested factual issue.” (emphasis added)

Nor are we persuaded that the treatment of the so-called Michael Bill in R (Countryside Alliance) v Attorney General [2008] 1 AC 719 supports the contrary argument. As the Speaker submits, the Michael Bill was the bill first introduced by the Government which was then heavily amended so as to become the Hunting Act 2004, and therefore the Bill which (albeit in heavily amended form) became the Act the compatibility of which was in issue.