My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 51 and 52. I will not rehearse the arguments that I made in Committee, but I still have a major concern around the removal of any criminal sanction against bad landlords for service charge abuse. I want to be quite clear that this is not a crusade against landlords; landlords are often small family businesses, which are very good and want to help their tenants. However, a significant number of landlords have their leaseholders by the short and curlies, to coin a term that was sent to me by a suffering leaseholder. He was trying to get across just how powerless leaseholders are in this situation.

At a time when we have the likes of Alan Bates and sub-postmasters actively considering bringing private criminal charges against the Post Office, why would we remove that tactic from another set of people in our society who are roundly abused all the time? It is very simple: all this, for me, is about control. We need to give people who have paid this money control over their own future and their own money.

On Amendment 52, if a landlord does not pay back their overcharging within two months, they should face interest charges. This is to incentivise a landlord who has lost in an open, professional tribunal, who then drags their feet and forces leaseholders to launch other legal proceedings to reclaim money that they are rightfully owed. Again, this comes down to letting the little man or woman in the street have some control over their future. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister will comment on why the Government would not support these two reasonable, necessary measures, and send a signal to the country that the law is on the side of the small person who has ploughed all their savings into their home and who has no recourse.