My Lords, this will give my noble friends Lord Moylan and Lord Howard an opportunity to catch their breath. At the beginning of our proceedings, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, picked up the Marshalled List, waved it in a state of mild indignation and demanded to know where was the amendment on forfeiture. My noble friend the Minister said it was not there, but here it is, in my name rather than the Government’s.

The position on forfeiture is very simple. At the moment, a tenant can lose possession of a flat worth £500,000 for a debt of £351, with the landlord keeping the entire difference between the value of the property and the debt. At Second Reading, this was condemned by nearly every speaker who spoke on it. When the Minister wound up, she said:

“We recognise that this is a real and significant problem and that there is huge inequity at stake here”.—[Official Report, 27/3/24; col. 704.]

The issue was raised again in Committee, and again my noble friend the Minister replied:

“We recognise that there is the potential for significant inequity”— it had been a “huge” inequity; now it is a “significant” one—

“where a landlord stands to gain a windfall when a lease is forfeited. However, I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the Committee that the Government have been listening to calls for us to act. The Government continue to work through the detail and we will report to the House shortly with more information

Now is the opportunity to report to the House with more information.

Of course, I hope we might have an element of surprise in our proceedings and the Minister will get up and say that this amendment can be accepted, but I fear that the script in his folder begins “resist”. I put a direct question to my noble friend: exactly what progress has his department been able to make on this subject? It was raised at Second Reading in the other place many months ago, where the Minister recognised that this was an inequity, so they have had four or five months in which to address the problem. I want to know whether sufficient progress has been made for the Government, of whatever complexion, to provide me at the beginning of the next Parliament with a Private Member’s Bill that will simply put right this inequity of forfeiture. Actually, I had a Private Member’s Bill on this subject some time ago, so there is a template on which to build. If my noble friend cannot accept the amendment, can he give an undertaking that the necessary measures have been drafted and that they will be available to any Member who is successful in the ballot at the beginning of the next Parliament so that we can introduce this measure by a Private Member’s Bill if we cannot do it today? I beg to move.