MP finds unlikely ally in park homes fee campaign
Bath’s MP has “made her peace” with one of her opponents in her battle to support residents of park homes in the cost-of-living crisis.
Wera Hobhouse has been campaigning for park home residents, like those in Quarry Rock Gardens, to make sure that their pitch fees are not increased unfairly and that they receive energy price guarantee payments this year.
Now help has come from perhaps an unlikely source.
In 2018, the Conservative MP Sir Christopher Chope blocked Mrs Hobhouse’s Voyeurism (Offences) bill to make so-called “upskirting” – the surreptitious taking of sexually intrusive images – a specific criminal offence.
When a private member’s bill is given its second reading in the House of Commons, if no MP disagrees it is passed without a vote and can be given a date for its third reading. But when the then deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle read out the name of the bill Sir Christopher shouted: “Object.”
Mrs Hobhouse was said at the time to have been “frustrated” with Sir Christopher, who has regularly obstructed private members’ bills in the past. Indeed he faced vehement criticism even from other Tory MPS, because by delaying the upskirting bill, it would have run out of time and fallen by the wayside had it not been taken up by Theresa May.
Now, four years later, a most unlikely understanding seems to have been reached between Bath’s MP and her old adversary.
Last week, Christopher Chope’s Mobile Homes (Pitch Fees) bill was given a series of short unopposed readings in a single sitting of the Commons and is now awaiting passage through the House of Lords.
This private member’s bill from the veteran Conservative backbencher is aimed at reforming how charges for pitching mobile homes are calculated, an issue Mrs Hobhouse has also highlighted recently on behalf of the residents of Quarry Rock Gardens on Claverton Down.
It would change how pitch fee reviews rise in line with inflation to lower costs for mobile homeowners, moving from the Retail Prices Index (RPI) to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI).
All bills introduced into Parliament are usually scrutinised over several stages in the Commons during the course of a year.
However, Sir Christopher’s bill passed through all its stages unopposed in one sitting.
“Residents in park homes like those in Quarry Rock Gardens have been left particularly exposed by the cost-of-living crisis due to the absurd way their pitch fees prices are set,” Mrs Hobhouse said. “It has been clear for some time, and the Liberal Democrats and I have campaigned as such, that there needs to be a change
“I am relieved that this change finally seems to be materialising through Christopher Chope’s private member’s bill.
“I hope it is a relief as well to residents in homes such as these that their lives no longer have this ridiculous added cost hanging over them.
“It has been blindingly obvious that park homes should be tied to CPI, not RPI, and I am grateful that the House has also come to this realisation.
“I very much support Christopher Chope’s bill and wish it a speedy passage through Parliament so we can give park home residents a better situation as quickly as possible.”
She added that there was more the Government could be doing to help such residents and that the Lib Dems had written to Business Secretary Grant Shapps urging him to provide routes to extra support with energy bills for park homes residents and to ensure that they are included in the energy price guarantee.
She said: “I hope the Government listens so we can fully support these types of homeowners. To not do so would be completely unjust.”