JAMES AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUGDMENT 7 18. For some years compulsory enfranchisement had been part of Labour Party policy. After the election of a Labour Government in 1964, a further White Paper was published in 1966 setting out the Government’s proposals for reform including a scheme of compulsory enfranchisement (Leasehold Reform in England and Wales - Command Paper Cmnd 2916). The grounds on which the Government considered reform to be necessary were set out as follows: "The purpose 1. This White Paper is concerned with residential long leases particularly those granted originally in the latter half of the last century. In the case of long leases, experience has shown that the system has worked very unfairly against the occupying leaseholder. The freeholder has provided the land; but in the great majority of cases it is the leaseholder or his predecessor in title who at their own expense have built the house on the land. Whether this is so or not in all cases, it is almost universally true that over the years it is the lessee and his predecessors who have borne the cost of improvements and maintenance, and these will probably have cost far more than the original building itself. At their expense the leaseholders have preserved it as a habitable dwelling and have used it as such, and not unnaturally, an occupying leaseholder who at the end of the term has lived in it for such a period of years regards it as his family home. It is in such cases quite indefensible, if justice is to be done as between freeholder and occupying leaseholder, that at the end of the term, the law should allow the ownership of the house to revert to the freeholder without his paying anything for it so that he gets not only the land but also the house, the improvements and everything the leaseholder and his predecessors have added to it. 2. The Government has decided that a solution must be found to right this injustice. In the Government’s view the basic principle of a reform which will do justice between the parties should be that the freeholder owns the land and the occupying leaseholder is morally entitled to the ownership of the building which has been put on and maintained on that land. 3. Two circumstances make reform a matter of urgency. First, most people buy their house on mortgage and for them the leasehold system works particularly harshly. A purchaser on mortgage may pay virtually the freehold price for a lease with a good many years to run but as he reaches the end of his mortgage term he will feel a sharpening sense of injustice. He will realise that after he has discharged the mortgage he will have an interest far less valuable than it was when he bought it, and difficult to sell because a subsequent purchaser may not be able to get a mortgage. This is the reality now confronting many owner occupiers who purchased their houses on setting up home immediately after the war. Second, a great many leasehold estates were built in the second half of the nineteenth century when landowners used their monopoly power to prevent development taking place on other than leasehold terms. This occurred particularly in South Wales and in some English areas. These leases are beginning to fall in and the leaseholders are now experiencing the full harshness of the leasehold system. The Plan 4. The Government will, therefore, introduce a Bill to give leaseholders with an original long lease greater security and to enable them to acquire the freehold on fair