My Lords, first, I will answer the noble Lord, Lord Khan. He brings up an important issue and I heard his concerns on the level of service charges to leaseholders. I do not think that that is particularly relevant to this amendment, but I hear his concerns and I will take them back to the department and we will get a letter to him saying what we are doing about that.
I am sorry, but I am going to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Best, on this amendment—but perhaps not as much as I could have done. I thank him and my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe for raising this important matter. The Bill provides that an accountable person is the entity responsible for the repair of the exterior, structure and common parts of a building. This may well include leaseholders who have set up resident-led organisations exercising their statutory right to take control of their building away from the freeholder. These statutory rights are very important. They act as a device to ensure that the imbalance of power between freehold and leasehold tenure is redressed and that leaseholders are empowered to make decisions about the safety management of their buildings. With this empowerment come responsibilities and accountability. The amendment would allow such resident-led organisations to appoint a third party to be responsible for their building’s safety management, passing culpability to that third party if anything went wrong.
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We have thought carefully about the definition of the accountable person, making sure that we deliver the recommendations of Dame Judith Hackitt. She recommended that there should be a duty holder with clear lines of responsibility for managing building safety risks. I am afraid that we think that this amendment would confuse the line of responsibility.
However, I sympathise with resident-led organisations where the lay person puts themselves forward to manage their building. With the new building safety regime, that may be more than they had initially anticipated. We will produce guidance to help resident-led organisations, ensuring that the regulator provides the necessary support so that they can effectively register their building and manage fire and structural safety risks.
I must also point out that this amendment would have the effect of increasing costs on leaseholders, as noble Lords have said. A resident-led organisation may have taken back control because of excessive service charges imposed by the freeholder. Surely appointing a third party would increase these costs yet again, which is contrary to our objective of ensuring that the new regime is proportionate.
I thank noble Lords for suggesting this amendment but, for the reasons that I have set out, we are unable to accept it. However, I think that there is a wider question around residents leaning in and taking responsibility for buildings within our leaseholder reform policy and we will give this further thought within government. I offer those noble Lords who are interested a meeting before Report to discuss it further.