Speeches by Pennycook.

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

“I do not want to sound obtuse, but I cannot tell you when the substantive Bill will receive Royal Assent or when each piece of secondary legislation will be enacted; the timelines are variable. In my oral statement when introducing the draft Bill, I gave an estimate of 2028 for some of the provisions, such as those on …”

“I am not sure that is the case.”

“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…”

“Lots of their representations are public. We have had extensive engagement with a range of stakeholders, including investors. Caroline, you might like to come in on this.”

“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 …”

“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 …”

“I might bring in officials to supplement what I am going to say, but, essentially, the bulk of the measure as we intend to take it forward is set out in the draft Bill. There are a number of remaining policy choices that we need to work through. We flagged a number of those to the Committee. Quid pro quo leases are a g…”

“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.”

“Good morning to you, Chair, and to members of the Committee. Before I begin, can I put on record my thanks for the work you have already undertaken in scrutinising the draft Bill, and my appreciation to all the members of the public and stakeholders who have engaged with the PLS process? I know that we have a lot to ge…”

“What is the question?”

“It is a fair question. In the previous sessions I have seen, where other figures—including previous Secretaries of State—have given evidence, there have been a range of views on this matter. You understand, as I think the public do, that the shorter the transition on the peppercorn time, the greater the potential disru…”

“It is my preference and my intention to include those fixes in this Bill, subject to receiving collective agreement and getting that through the process of the King’s Speech. The point I am trying to make is that the valuation rates consultation is not the constraint to switching on those provisions. It is the flaws in…”

“That will be forthcoming in the coming months. The important point here is that we will go out to consult on the capitalisation and deferment rates, which, as you know, under the 2024 Act the Secretary of State sets. I just want to make the point which I have tried to stress on previous occasions: we could have consult…”

“Yes. In a sense, that is a very general question. We made a comprehensive analysis of how we should honour the commitments in our manifesto to tackle unaffordable, unregulated ground rents. We have engaged a very wide range of stakeholders. We think the policy in the draft Bill is the most appropriate, justified and pr…”

“I will weigh that up and make a judgment, but it will be good to have your general view.”

“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…”

“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.”

“A future piece of legislation would be slower than this one obviously, which is before us.”

“On the principle you raise, that is one of the considerations in the timeline for impact. There is a world in which we could get a number of discrete managing agent provisions into this draft Bill, and that would be switched on at the point that we receive Royal Assent, and any secondary legislation required. If we tak…”