My right hon. Friend raises a good point and has an advantage over me as I do not know in depth how that would happen in, for instance, Manhattan, but I think we should understand that situation more before pushing ahead and ruling that commonhold will effectively become the default for every single development in the UK. The Government have done a great job in many things and one of them is in increasing the rate of development in the UK, and I have a concern that some developers might be inhibited in taking on a very complex
project because of fears about selling the residential units or renting the commercial units. I just think we need to understand more before pushing ahead and rolling complex developments into the legislation, rather than exempting such developments from it as we on the Select Committee recommended and Lord Lytton recommended in his speech—he tabled an amendment.
I just think we should look at this area and make sure we get it right, because one law we constantly effect in this place is the law of unintended consequences and we must avoid that. So peppercorn leasehold and commonhold are fine, but we need to make sure we look at those complex situations. I personally think that if we do not find a simple solution and cannot demonstrate that it will work in the UK, because the UK clearly has some unique elements to the property market, then we should set a cap on the ground rent in exempted developments, for instance of £100 or 0.1% of value, whichever is the lowest, to make sure it is always affordable for leaseholders. I absolutely understand that this has been a problem, but we must make sure that developers do not avoid exploiting development opportunities—particularly brownfield development opportunities in city centres—because of complexities.
Aside from that, I am very happy to support what the Government are trying to do.
6.53 pm