“(1) Within three months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must consider and report to Parliament on the situation of homeowners who have been told that they cannot change their estate management company because they are named on a TP1.

(2) The report required by subsection (1) must include proposals for legislative change to enable such homeowners to change their estate management company where appropriate.”—

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Again, this new clause originates from some of the inbound traffic that we have received as we have considered the Bill. I seek clarification from the Minister about the extent of these changes. The Committee was advised by a number of citizens about the status of estate management companies that are written into the deeds or other legal documents that are signed upon purchase. One such citizen wrote:

“Our management company…is named in the TP1, so we have no rights to do this”— that is, to essentially appoint their own managers.

This is a probing new clause: I just want the Minister to be clear about the impact of the Bill on individuals such as the person whom I just quoted. As a consequence of the Bill’s provisions, will they be able to change their estate management company, or is there some legal trick about the original documents that were signed on purchase that would mean they are not brought into the ambit of those new rights?

As my hon. Friend outlined, the new clause would introduce a requirement for the Government to assess the situation of homeowners with estate management companies explicitly named on their deeds within a three-month timeframe.

I am sympathetic to the concerns that my hon. Friend raised. I know that he recognises that this is a complex area and that there are detailed issues to be worked through. As well as being clear about the nature of the problem, there could be issues about defining the scope of estate management functions and what criteria need to be met. The Law Commission carried out a review of the right to manage for flats, but that is not always directly transferable to freehold estates. It will take some time to carry out a review, and we need to engage with people across the sector. Then, the CMA report is coming. None the less, I recognise my hon. Friend’s concerns that the comprehensive measures in the Bill do not go far enough, and I acknowledge his desire for the Government to go further. I am listening carefully to his concerns on this matter. On that basis, I hope that he might withdraw his new clause.

It is not actually clear that the Minister was addressing new clause 51 as I was expecting; that may be the fault of my hearing. I was seeking clarification about the TP1—transfer of part of registered title—form, which is used by developers when selling a house to explicitly name an estate management company that will be in situ. That may be the norm; I do not know. However, can the Minister clarify, if the way that it is originally set up is not the norm and it is a legal device, whether it has greater legal standing, and whether the rights of people for whom the estate management company is defined in form TP1 will be included in the rights that we are trying to establish with the rest of the Bill? If we introduce changes that increase the right to manage and so on, will they be covered? I may well have missed it, because the Minister is much more knowledgeable about the Bill than I am, even after all our deliberations. However, just to the specific point about the legal forms, will he consider bringing that in as part of this?

I want to double-check the valid points made by my hon. Friend. I will commit to writing to him on that specific point to make sure that we are covering in the way that he expects.

That is very kind of the Minister. With that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.