Matthew Pennycook

To be clear, the protections we are talking about, which we intend to switch on as soon as is feasible and were provided for by powers under the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act passed by the previous Government, will benefit existing residential freeholders on existing estates. I will come to the prevalence of those arrangements in due course, but I can reassure hon. Members that we intend to carry out that consultation this year, as promised, and that I am doing everything I can to expedite it. Beyond the short-term need to protect residential freeholders better, we have to take steps to reduce the prevalence of private estate management arrangements, which are the root cause of the problems we are considering today. In my written ministerial statement, I committed the Government to consulting on legislative and policy options to achieve that objective. I hope that hon. Members appreciate that this is not a simple and straightforward area of policy and that the implications of policy choices are potentially far-reaching.