Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to legislate to prevent unreasonable increases in ground rents on existing leasehold properties.

The Government believes leaseholders as consumers should only pay for the services they receive, and we are reforming the leasehold market to make it fairer for leaseholders.

A number of developers have introduced schemes to compensate individuals with onerous leases, but they must go further and faster. We want to see support extended to all customers with onerous ground rents, including second hand buyers, and for developers to proactively contact those affected.

The former Housing Secretary wrote to developers on 21 December 2017 to set out this expectation. My Department is keeping a close eye on progress and will consider measures that could be pursued to take action if necessary.