My Lords, I have spoken only about twice on this Bill but I must declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I support the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes. She has been a doughty campaigner on leasehold. Over the years several of us in the Chamber, including the noble Baroness who has returned to us today and, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, have tried to grapple with the issue of leasehold. The legality of it is incredibly complex and the Labour Government tried to do something about it. I remember spending hours on the last leasehold reform Bill, and some of the things that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, has talked about today came forward in that Bill. At the time, we said that we were not happy about some aspects of it but we really needed to look at what was happening and review it over time.
I appreciate that a review of leasehold legislation is probably something that the Government do not want to go near. It is incredibly complex but, given that a lot of building has gone on in London and a lot of the new flats are leasehold, this is an area that we need to look at. Because it is so complex, some leasehold landlords can use the legislation to disadvantage leaseholders—sometimes financially and sometimes making them powerless to do anything about what goes on in their building. This is an important area and, as I said, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, because she has been a doughty campaigner on it over the years. I recognise that these amendments relate to matters that the Government probably do not want to look at, but I share her view that they really need to look at least at the issues that she has raised today. They need to be reviewed and revisited.