I’m nervous about Leveson’s proposals to abolish jury trial in intermediate cases and replace them with trial by a judge and two magistrates. It is as though he’s suggesting that either way offences carrying a likely penalty of less than 3 years imprisonment are not serious. But a theft conviction can be very serious if you lose your career as a result. Fair enough if you are actually guilty of the offence charged. That’s where the jury comes in. People like you and me with the same collective sense of fairness and justice. Not quite the same when you are facing an impatient prosecution-minded magistrate or judge who just wants to get through their case list. And what is the point of even electing trial, if you are not going to get to argue your case before 12 people who are living similar lives as you are.
Another thing I have long noticed is the increasing remoteness for our justice system from common expectations of right and wrong. Where everything seems to be decided on on academic technicality. We’ve come a long way since the passing of ‘people’s judge’, Tom Denning. Then there is the secrecy over the judicial appointments process itself. Whether it’s the appointment of judges and magistrates or the members of a parole board, who ignore public outrage when releasing a dangerous murderer. Who appoints these people? I’m sure that I have never been consulted. All that is left between them and us is 12 members of a jury. Now they want to take that away, Why? Because of successive government incompetence when it comes to our criminal justice system. How does it save money by delaying a case for two or three years instead of bringing it on now? It just doesn’t make sense to me.
My own solution would be to move to an American system of elected judges and magistrates. Make them accountable.
My heart always sinks when I see news footage of hobby eco-protesters standing outside a court building, waving placards, and celebrating the stalling of yet another commercial project. This time It was the Rosebank oil exploration project, off Shetland, in which Shell had invested £800 million and involved one of the largest undeveloped oil and gas fields in the UK continental shelf, containing an estimated 300 million barrels. And why do our most senior judiciary seem to think it is their mission to wave their green credentials to tease out the tiniest administrative flaw in the regulatory approval process, to send everything back to the drawing board? Who appoints these people? It follows hot on the heels of another court judgment crushing implementation of proposals to open Britain’s first new coal mine at Whitehaven, for more than 30 years. In each case, the judicial mantra was the same. “That the proposals failed to adequately assess the greenhouse gas emissions tied to burning fossil fuels.” And we know that with a government energy minister so opposed to fossil fuel extraction, that none of these projects are ever likely to happen. But haven’t these eminent legal brains slightly missed the point?
Yes – we know that burning fossil fuels causes climate change. Which is why we need to put in place viable alternatives .But neither the Rosebank nor the Whitehaven projects were about burning fossil fuels. They were about extracting fossil fuels so that we don’t have to import them from abroad. Either way. fossil fuels will still be burnt, because at the moment we have nothing else. And of course those projects would have also created thousands of well-paid jobs. So what is the point they are making? And it is entirely appropriate for me to refer to these eco-protesters as hobbyists, as none of them would have suffered direct personal detriment as a result of either of these projects. It is all about the big abstract ‘we’. And what message does it send to the outside world? A Britain which is so up itself that it is prepared to cut off its nose to spite its commercial face. Who would want to invest in us? The next big battle is going to be about the proposed third runway at Heathrow Airport. Even if it goes ahead, I’m not sure that I will still be around when it is completed. But that’s no reason not to support it.
I really blame the last conservative government for this farce. They had 14 years to drive these projects through. But instead they preferred to spend their time posturing about Brexit and their precious Rwanda scheme, as everything else around them fell apart. And they were a government which was in hock to the NIMBY lobby, which is why the cost of HS2 ballooned almost to the point of cancellation.
When it comes to the third Heathrow runway, I’m with Rachel Reeves. I know she’s had a bad press, but I’m convinced that she’s trying to do her best to grow the British economy. Again, so different from the last lot, the ‘party of business’. But even now, opposition to the third runway is cranking into gear, not least from London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has promised court proceedings to try to stall the project.
Spending my money to fight a court case against his own parliamentary party? What is that all about? And he hasn’t even consulted me. A case of public money fighting public money. How wasteful. But that is Britain today.
Starmer’s mistake was not that someone else paid for his wife’s clothes but that he did not follow protocol in declaring it. But wouldn’t you think that he would have known that?
Contrary to what many people think, there is no law which says that someone in public office cannot accept hospitality, in circumstances when it might be considered insulting to refuse. But there has to be transparency.
All public sector organisations have a hospitality book in which you can write in hospitality which is offered to you and you are minded to accept. It might be a pair of cuff-links. It might be an invitation to a ‘black-tie’ dinner. Take a few moments to look your organisation’s hospitality book to see what other people have written into it. You may be surprised,
One of the things I’ve noticed in the past couple of years is the appearance of cans of Carlsberg; Guinness and some other beers and lagers, which have been repackaged in larger pint-sized containers. So when you pour it out, it will reach the top of your glass. Just as if you were buying it draught.
What makes it legal in the UK to sell beer in pint-size cans is the fact that the 568ml equivalent is also displayed on the can. Just as a McDonalds quarter pounder doesn’t define its weight but is a trademark. A McDonalds quarter pounder’s actual legal weight in the UK is a minimum of 113.4 grammes uncooked. But for me, it will always be quarter pounder.
So why is it that when I buy a 454 gramme jar of strawberry jam, I am not allowed to call it a pound of jam? It is never labelled as such, even though for all practical purposes, 454 grammes is a pound of jam The welcome exception is MacKay’s 12-ounce (340 gramme) jars of jam and marmalade, which are labelled in this way. So why can’t other manufacturers label in the same way? Selling items in imperial units is not illegal provided that you label the stuff correctly.
The fact Is, that pint cans have never been part of the British tradition because, before metrication, off-sales of beer were in brown pint or quart bottles. The only notable canned beer which existed before metrication was the Watney’s Party 7 (and the smaller Party 4), which was sold in large cans which you could never open. And when you did manage to pierce the heavy-duty aluminium, the gaseous contents sprayed everywhere. From the 1970s onwards, most canned beers were sold in the horrible 440ml size, which doesn’t appear to convert to anything and which continues to be the standard size for most canned beers sold in the UK. Why 440 ml?
Currently, it is only the British Weights and Measures Association (which appears closely aligned to Brexit and Farage’s Reform Party) which is fighting to preserve use of imperial units and which is fighting a rearguard action against mandated metrication. But you don’t have to be an ardent Brexiteer or Faragist to regret the erasure of 1000 years of history. And there is nothing anti-Europe about wanting to preserve our industrial heritage. And the problem with rearguard actions is that they always fail, unless they buy time for something else to intervene.
Where imperial measurements still reign supreme, are in those parts of the world economy which have been traditionally dominated by the United States. And no mandated-metrication is ever going to change that. Which is why we buy 15-inch pizzas and eat 15-ounce steaks. Why we buy our McDonalds Quarter Pounders. Why we fly at 30,000 feet. Why heavyweight boxers still weigh themselves in pounds. And why you might buy a 56-inch TV for your living room.
King’s Speech 2024 – what it means for conveyancers and other property professionals.
We are not talking about the big-ticket stuff – like House of Lords reform. Instead, we are focusing on the small-print in the Starmer agenda. The things which are likely to affect our day-to-day work. We also mention things which we would have expected to see mentioned in the King’s Speech, on which there has so far been silence. Here are the things which interest us.
A Planning and Infrastructure Bill
This is exciting. For too long, the ‘no’ lobby has been in the ascendancy. And all at a time of housing crisis. Planning has become two politicised. Planning pre-conditions have become long shopping lists, within a process which has become like treacle. Even so, the government’s announced proposals for reforming the planning system are modest: with the restoration of house-building targets and the reclassification of some parts of the green belt. When what is really required is a speeding up of the whole planning process. Which shouldn’t be problematic for a self-financing public service. We’re sure many developers would be willing to pay a little bit extra by way of planning-fees, to pay for the additional staff needed to get their applications through the system. And if it is blocked by local politicians, to get it quickly in front of a government-appointed planning inspector. Why should that be difficult?
Leasehold Reform
Some of it we have heard before. Like replacing a leasehold system which has existed for more than 1000 years by a new system of commonhold.  The legislation already exists in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.  But it didn’t work when Tony Blair tried to introduce it more than 20 years ago. Because nobody wanted it. So why will it work now? Despite its imperfections, residential leasehold is the most workable system for selling flats and maisonettes. So wouldn’t it be better just to make the reforms needed to get the existing residential leasehold system right, instead of trying to force something which nobody wants. At the moment, we are waiting for the new government to bring into force detailed provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, which received royal assent in the last days of the Conservative government. But it is not just about bringing it into force, because the detail will be in the regulations which, as far as we’re aware, have yet to be published. So there is some work for the new government to do before that legislation can take effect. We are also expecting the new government to waste no time in pushing forward with the Renters Reform Bill, which had been tabled by the previous Conservative government but dropped as soon as the general election was called. It always seemed to us that the last government’s commitment to removing section 21 no-fault evictions was always a little half-hearted, we assume because of the landlord-lobby. Funny thing about the section 21 evictions process, was that it was not seen as problematic in 1989 when the private-rented sector was opened up, because the residential market was so different, with residential landlords competing with each other for the best tenants, not the other way round, as it is today. It meant that if, in 1989, you were a reputable tenant who was unlucky enough to be given the section 21 notice of eviction, there would be dozens of other potential landlords bidding to accommodate you. And remember, that in 1988, most councils still had their social rented stock.
Absences
As well as the reforms which the new government has announced, there are also some things missing, which we would have expected to find within the King’s Speech or other government announcements. We are surprised that there has been no mention at all of any scaling back of right-to-buy, not even from the crazy discounts introduced by the Cameron government. What is scandalous is that up to 40% of ex-right-to-buy properties are now in the hands of private landlords, meaning that local authorities are having to rent back ex-right-to-buy properties on their own estates, just to meet their statutory housing needs. What nonsense is that? Is our system of housing benefits really so generous that it can afford to throw money at private landlords, because there is no longer any significant affordable rented sector? No wonder first-time buyers and private renters have been priced out of the housing market. The other thing, for which there has been no mention, is any revamp of the measures brought in by the Gordon Brown government to bring long-term empty dwellings back into occupational use. The problem with Brown’s empty dwellings management orders, was that the whole process was too cumbersome to be of any use. At the last count there were approximately 260,000 empty dwellings in the UK. What a waste!
Legislative Agenda
We have also taken a few moments to look at the government bills which are currently before Parliament. Presently, there are only five government bills, most of which we think are uncontroversial. These include a new Arbitration Bill, building on the existing 1996 legislation, to restore London as the world’s arbitration capital. Who is going to argue with that? And there is also the bill to re-nationalise Britain’s railways. With only four clauses, this bill is astonishingly short for what has become one of the new government’s landmark policies. It does no more than prohibit a re-letting of existing railway franchises except to a government-owned company.
BRUCE AND HOLLY 