Part of Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 2:45 pm ar 25 Ionawr 2024.
I appreciate what the Minister has said, both about the variety of circumstances that need to be covered and about the difficulties with imposing a flat cap. I take on board what he said about the Government listening carefully.
I am minded to press the amendment to a vote purely to indicate how strongly we feel about this issue. The thrust of the five provisions is, “Let’s increase transparency and let’s increase the enforcement measures,” all ultimately to ensure that leaseholders have a better ability to bear down on unreasonable costs, and it is of great concern to us that while we are trying to do that, we are opening up other routes whereby unscrupulous landlords can start to introduce unreasonable costs in relation to the very things that we are trying to clamp down on. We will press the amendment to a vote simply to put on the record our concern in respect of leaseholders needing some protection—even if it is not a flat cap—from unreasonable costs being passed on through this mechanism.