I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and my noble friends Lord Bailey of Paddington and Lord Young for their amendments, and all who have spoken in the final group of this Bill.

I will start with the amendments regarding the regulation of property agents. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best—I appreciate he is not here—for raising the issue with the Minister recently; I know that it is something which he is passionate about, and I hope that he continues to engage extensively with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. The Government are committed to driving up professionalism and standards among property agents. Leaseholders deserve a good service for the money they pay, whether that is from from their landlord or their managing agent, where one is in place. Industry plays an important role in driving up standards, and we welcome the ongoing work it is undertaking to support this. This includes industry-backed qualifications, as well as the preparations of codes of practice. Furthermore, the measures in the Bill, alongside existing protections in place and work being undertaken by industry, seek to make managing agents more accountable to those who pay for their services. That includes making it easier for leaseholders to take on management of their buildings themselves, where they can directly appoint or replace agents. The measures above will, I believe, contribute substantially to that objective.

In addition, we need to consider the question of standards for all property agents in the round rather than in a piecemeal fashion. That was the original purpose behind the idea of a regulator for property agents. While I recognise the intentions and desired outcomes of these amendments, I do not consider that now is the right time to introduce them.

I turn to Amendment 67. I trust that your Lordships will understand that the Government cannot accept these proposed amendments. Defining a Section 24 manager as “an accountable person” would move financial and criminal liabilities away from the existing accountable person to the Section 24 manager. It was the intent of the Building Safety Act that financial and criminal responsibility for certain aspects of maintaining the building should always remain with the accountable person and accountable persons cannot delegate this responsibility to a third party. Given these assurances, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment and that other noble Lords will not press their amendments.