Thank you very much, and I also am grateful to Hefin for bringing forward this debate today. There's been a great amount of media attention recently and some really serious concerns raised by AMs about the various issues affecting people who own their homes on a leasehold basis. I was pleased to announce a package of measures to begin to address those concerns just over a week ago. However, Hefin's debate today really does shine a light on the issues affecting people who own their homes on a freehold basis, and specifically where they're on estates and subject to management fees where they, unlike leaseholders, have no means of challenging those charges.

I only have four minutes to respond to this debate, so I won't rehearse again the concerns that Members have been raising so clearly, but I do hear them and I do recognise them. It is clear to me that many of the concerns that we have heard do stem from the same place as the leasehold concerns that we heard in the individual Member's debate led by Mick Antoniw, and that really is about the pressing need to professionalise and raise standards of behaviour in the property and estate management sector. And I say 'professionalise and raise standards of behaviour' because, actually, some of the most professional companies are the ones displaying some of the poorest behaviour.

Members will have heard me say, in response to Mick Antoniw’s debate, that I won't shy away from legislation and they will also have heard me say that we are currently engaging with the Law Commission's review of residential, leasehold and commonhold law. That review has three key strands: it includes leaseholding franchisement; commonhold as an alternative to leasehold; and very importantly in the context of today's debate, the regulation of management agents. I have to say that I think that that may very much be the space that we need to be in when the review reports before too long.

I'm really pleased that the UK Government is also engaging with the Law Commission and looking at these issues, because some of them do fall into the area of consumer law and of the law of property, where we will need to see action from the UK Government as well. However, we don't need to wait to start to address this issue. Our success in securing the agreement of the major house builders to no longer sell new-build houses as leasehold, unless absolutely necessary, is very much down to the constructive relationship that we've built with them through our house builder engagement programme. So, I give Members my commitment today to open up discussions with the sector on the issues that we've heard in this debate today using that forum.