I thank the Front Benchers from the official Opposition for their support for the Bill. I am grateful to them, as is the whole House. It is a pleasure to see them still in their places. We know there is an Opposition reshuffle going on. It must feel to them that it is taking as long for the Leader of the Opposition to conduct his reshuffle as it is to reform leasehold. We trust that we can get on a little bit quicker than he can.
It has been a real pleasure to listen to the debate unfold. We have had a valuable and considered set of speeches. One of the ornamentations, one might say, of our Standing Orders is that they allow right hon. and hon. Members to range freely across the terrain in a Second Reading debate, and that is what has happened tonight. As the House will know, the Bill is narrowly focused on leasehold ground rent reform, but the debate has allowed the House to debate more freely the wider question of leasehold reform, retrospection and other matters. We will be addressing them in future, but let me say, before I make some further and more detailed points, that I am grateful to the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) for his very thoughtful contribution. It sounds to me as though he is going to write me and the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), a very long letter. We look forward to working with him to resolve the issues he raised.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friends the Members for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), and my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) for raising the issue of retirement sector ground rent reform. As the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North, said, we have made it absolutely clear that the retirement sector has had an exemption of a further 12 months to get its business model in order. We believe that that is a right and proper amount of time, because there are a number of business models that the sector can use to effectively and appropriately levy reasonable charges that are transparent and fair on residents. It sounds as though my right hon. and hon. Friends may be interested in amendments. They know the process by which to pursue those, if they so wish. However, there will always be disparities between one set of buildings and another and between new buildings to which ground rents will not apply and older buildings to which ground rents will apply. I suspect that those differences will be factored into market calculations or will have little effect on the actual challenges that face residents.