Speeches by Pennycook.

“Without reading out the guidance we have published and the explanatory notes, the operation of the relevant clauses is a matter of public record. In general, what we have tried to do with shared owners is make them a permitted lease within commonhold. It is one of the key ways we have updated the commonhold legal frame…”

“Secondary legislation in what respect?”

“We will strengthen the regulation of managing agents in this Parliament. If that requires primary legislation or inclusion in this Bill, that is what we will do.”

“I agree. I refer you to my previous answers on managing agents. We are very clear that we are going to deal with that.”

“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Dowd. I congratulate the hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine) on securing this debate, and I thank the other hon. Members who have participated this afternoon for their contributions. On the subject of the hon. Lady’s letter, prior to this debate my o…”

“You are conflating a number of quite distinct issues. We have managing agent reform, which the 2019 Lord Best report dealt with. We have a piece of Law Commission work on right to manage, or what the variant of right to manage might be.”

“I will bring officials in here. I do not think I can answer that today. I do not know the Law Commission’s recommended approach on this point. It comes back to what you mean by ending the injustice of fleecehold. I would say that at the point that we switch on new consumer protections, we are taking action. We will tak…”

“If you will excuse me, Mr Curtis, this is all extremely hypothetical. We have two consultations that got a significant amount of feedback. We have the Law Commission work on whether there is an appropriate form of enhanced residential freeholder control of freehold estates and what it would be. We have to see what come…”

“I don’t think I can sit here and make that commitment now. I think partly we need to see, particularly on the prevalence issue, what comes out of the consultation.”

“We do want to address their concerns and the injustices that many of them face. In the development of this draft Bill, we have looked at what specific provisions we can bring forward. Obviously, we have brought some forward—the Bill is not silent on private estates, on freehold estates, and rent charges provisions are …”

“Are we talking about this Bill or are we talking as a general point?”

“Our advice in all these instances would be to obtain legal advice, not least from the Government-supported Leasehold Advisory Service, as to the particular circumstances. But you are talking about disclosure just as a requirement for enfranchisement?”

“That is the point. We want to give people the maximal range of options here. We think there are advantages and benefits that commonhold offers over share of freehold, but it is up to people in the buildings themselves as to what option they want to take forward. Over time, I would hope—this goes to the point I made in …”

“We would not guide the tribunal to look at specific factors. The tribunal has the expertise to make those decisions and a range of powers, but I take the point about pets, which I have heard strong views on from various people.”

“To Rachel’s point, this is one of those areas where we looked closely at what the Law Commission said. It explored whether commonhold associations could exist as another form of corporate structure or a bespoke corporate body, and ultimately decided that the appropriate balance lay with retaining it as a company limite…”

“Let me give you a top line, and then Caroline and Rachel can come in. We expect to issue guidance on a whole suite of issues relating to commonhold. The industry is already preparing its own guidance. We want to work closely with it to ensure that it is properly integrated with our efforts, but there will be all the ap…”

“We would obviously robustly defend an appeal case as well, yes.”

“What are you asking me?”

“We will be ready for it. We will robustly challenge it, as we did that to the 2024 Act. I go back to the fact that we want to see these reforms in place as quickly as possible. That is why, returning to the particular choices we have made on ground rents, it is to the lasting benefit of leaseholders to ensure that all …”

“Our contingency plan would be to robustly contest the legal action, as we robustly contested the challenge to the 2024 Act provisions. It is about as simple as that. It does not really go beyond that, so responding to the nature of the specific legal challenge that may or may not come. I fully expect one to come, let’s…”