Speeches by Pennycook.

“I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, for those fair and pertinent questions. I will answer each of them in turn. We published a whole series of documents at 7 am, including a copy of the draft Bill. That also included a policy document setting out our rationale f…”

“I am more than happy to write to my hon. Friend about the issue of shared ownership specifically. She will know that through our £39 billion social and affordable homes programme, we are making improvements to shared ownership as a tenure model. More widely, I can assure her that the provisions in the draft Bill will b…”

“I think that leaseholds will exist for some time to come. Indeed, people in various buildings may not, for whatever reason, wish to convert to commonhold, but it is absolutely our intention to make it easier to do so and to encourage as many leasehold homeowners as possible to make the change, because it is a radical i…”

“I thank the right hon. Member for his fair and reasonable question. The Government consider the intervention on ground rents that we are making through this draft Bill to be a justified and proportionate approach to the specific problems that leaseholders face as a result of high and harmful ground rents. We are introd…”

“I agree with my hon. Friend. She, like me, will have constituents who are subject to high, unfair ground rent charges and, in some cases, to escalating ground rent charges, particularly those that are inflation-linked. People across the country see those ground rent charges stack up to significant amounts and they will…”

“I must correct the hon. Gentleman: it does not solely deal with leasehold, as I made clear in the statement. The draft Bill will repeal sections 121 and 122 of the Law of Property Act 1925, ending the disproportionate remedies that give rent charge owners access to a draconian enforcement regime on freehold estates. As…”

“I detected an unusual amount of support in that question from the hon. Lady, which I welcome. On the specific issue of insurance charges, again, there was a consultation on switching on some of the provisions in the 2024 Act that relate to insurance commissions. I am more than happy to write to her to set out further d…”

“We are absolutely committed to strengthening regulation of managing agents. Some proposals on charges were set out in the consultation on protections for leaseholders, which we released last summer, but there is more to come.”

“As I have said, it is the Government’s intention to ensure that the draft Bill, and the final product that eventually comes forward after scrutiny by the Select Committee, is made law as soon as possible so that leaseholders can benefit from the new provisions. In general terms, no one will pay more than the ground ren…”

“I say to my hon. Friend that we are on his constituent’s side. It is because so many leaseholders across the country are suffering from unjust and discriminatory practices that we have to overhaul and ultimately end this feudal system.”

“I have made it clear to the House that we have already set out proposals to strengthen the regulation of managing agents. Those proposals are not the summit of our ambitions; there is more to come. I say to the hon. Gentleman and generally to the House that managing agents will play an even more important role as we pr…”

“I can feel the glare of my private office as I agree to meetings across the House, but I am happy to do so. The matters that the hon. Lady addresses are in the consultation we brought forward last year. It is an incredibly technical consultation on standardising and making more transparent service charges across the co…”

“The draft Bill, as published, includes exemptions that mirror the ground rent exemptions for new leases entered into since 30 July 2022, based on that previous Act of Parliament, but we will consider through the pre-legislative scrutiny process whether other exemptions would be appropriate for a small number of leases …”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. For various reasons, commonhold failed to take off after its introduction in 2004 and the legal framework is now hopelessly out of date. That is why we have to reform and reinvigorate commonhold as a tenure. We want to put in place an easier conversion mechanism. We have given a grea…”

“It is certainly not our intention to allow any loopholes into the legislation. That is precisely why we have brought forward a draft Bill rather than a final product. Such is the complexity and technical nature of the reform we are enacting that the additional and enhanced scrutiny to be provided by the Housing, Commun…”

“My hon. Friend is right: there will always be vested interests that resist reform of the nature that we are trying to take forward, just as there will always be naysayers out there for whom nothing we do is ever good enough. This package as a whole, as I have said, will end the leasehold system in its entirety and in a…”

“We have given serious consideration to how we will take forward Lord Best’s recommendations from his 2019 report and, as I have made clear, we are taking some of them forward already. This Bill introduces reform in a number of specific areas and, as I have said in response to previous questions, it does not need to do …”

“My hon. Friend will be aware that there were very few provisions relating to the right to manage in the 2024 Act. We are committed to enacting the remaining Law Commission recommendations relating not only to the right to manage but to leasehold enfranchisement. I am more than happy to write to her to try to get at the…”

“I very much agree with my hon. Friend that the draft Bill will be life-changing for leaseholders across the country, freeing them from the unjust and discriminatory practices that so many of them face, and from the financial cost of high ground rent terms. I am more than happy to write to her on the specific issue she …”

“As I have made clear, there are measures in this draft Bill that will provide enhanced protections for residential freeholders on freehold estates, but we are taking other action, and I refer him—as I have other hon. Members—to the two comprehensive consultations we launched before Christmas, one of which deals exclusi…”