Member

That argument is an ill-disguised attempt to throw one off the scent, and a piece of legal sophistry. What the leaseholders would acquire from the Crown Estate would be the freehold. The simple question for Parliament is: which statute should prevail? Is it the 1961 one, setting out the Crown Estate’s remit, or the subsequent Acts giving leaseholders rights? The answer is clear. After the Bill was passed earlier this year, Parliament gave certain rights to leaseholders and the Crown Estate agreed to honour them, and so it should. Many organisations have a duty to get best price for their assets—pension funds, local authorities and trustees —but they are all bound by the law. There is no reason why the Crown Estate, a commercial organisation, should be any different but there is in my view an even more powerful argument. Leaseholders who have been given rights by Parliament should not forfeit them when their freehold “disappears” and then reappears when the Crown Estate takes over, but mysteriously shorn of any conditions.