No, because I need to make progress. Perhaps I will allow the right hon. Gentleman to intervene a little later.
The key factor here is choice. At present, leaseholders do not have a choice, or they have a fake choice. The Bill will give them a genuine choice when it comes to how they manage and own their homes. However, while I warmly welcome these measures, we can and must go further. May I draw the attention of the Secretary of State and the Minister to a few of my suggestions?
The measures in the Bill will clearly be of enormous benefit to individual leaseholders, making it easier and cheaper for them to buy freeholds or extend leases, but of course this is a very complicated area, and I know it will be difficult for many leaseholders to understand exactly how much they will benefit financially. My first suggestion, therefore, is the provision of an easy-to-use digital calculator enabling people to see what the Bill means for them.
Then there is the issue of commonhold fixes. I know that the focus here is on ensuring that leaseholders cannot be exploited and can take control of their homes, but there is a clear Conservative and free-market rationale for accepting the Law Commission’s recommendations on reforming commonhold so that more developers choose it, rather than leasehold, for new blocks of flats—not because they are forced to do so, but because it is the best option for their business model. Can the Government look at that again? All the work has already been done.
I strongly welcome the Government’s consultation on capping ground rents. As I said in an intervention earlier, the Secretary of State must look at who is making the representations, and bear in mind the old adage, “They would say that, wouldn’t they?” when people oppose such caps. We know that ground rents are sheer exploitation. Let us call a spade a spade: this is money for nothing. Can the Minister assure me that there will be time to get a cap into the Bill once the consultation has closed?
We have all heard of too many sad cases involving a hard core of truly exploitative and dodgy freeholders—the bad apples—ripping off and exploiting leaseholders. We know that there are some freeholders who treat people properly, but the others know that going to court will be too much hassle for most people, and indeed that the odd tribunal defeat is just part of the cost of doing business. We must do something to ensure that there is a real cost to those unscrupulous companies and their directors.