Dame Meg Hillier

I declare an interest as a leaseholder myself. Like my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling), I will not name any managing agent or developments, because many of my residents are concerned that if their block is named, it will cause them very big issues. I was delighted to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) that there are some good management companies, because the picture is certainly mixed in my patch. The company that has been named often in this debate manages some estates in my area, and some are better run than others. A lot seems to depend on the individual property manager and how they run their development, and the size and age of a development definitely has an impact. In the short time that I have, I will raise a couple of important issues. One is about insurance. We know that costs went up post Grenfell because insurance moved from insuring just the floor that a flat is on to the entire block, but other increases have arisen that are difficult to explain, and there is a danger that we will struggle to get insurance. One block in my patch was able to get one insurer quote for 12 months only, and it was quoted an extortionately high excess rate at the beginning—somewhere in the region of £15,000. That was the excess that the housing association freeholder would have to pay before anything happened. It managed to get that down, but it could only get one 12-month period of insurance. I think we need to be careful in our discussions about the relationship between insurance companies and managing agents. I know from my role as Chair of the Treasury Committee that there are very strict rules on ringfencing operations, so insurance companies and managing agents should not have a cosy relationship. In law, they are not entitled to do so.