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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of introduction of Florrie's law on total cumulative costs charged to leaseholders in (a) Tower Hamlets, (b) London and (c) the UK.

We have not made a detailed assessment of the cumulative savings to leaseholders from our reforms to increase protection against unreasonable charges.

The Government is determined to protect the rights of leaseholders, and the introduction of Florrie's Law means that councils cannot levy huge bills for government-funded repair work on those who have little or no hope of meeting their demands.

The Government has gone further in protecting leaseholders by ensuring that any local authority who bid for a share of the £145 million Decent Homes backlog funding for 2015/16 had to:

- set out the council estimates for the mian elements of works to each estate, both for tenanted and leaseholder properties;
- explain how it would fund the extra costs on each estate if the £15,000 cap is lower than the estimated works costs for leaseholders;
- state what help it would be giving to leaseholders, such as loans or deferred payment arrangements;
- offer affordable repayment terms;
- provide a sample of its documentation showing how it explains estimated charges to leaseholders. This will include: alerting resident leaseholders to the cap; how it describes the works; a breakdown of charges for the main elements of the works; overheads; contingency; dispute protocols; and how any savings are distributed to leaseholders where profit-sharing arrangements exist; and
- publish on its website the deatils of its procurement strategy.

This Government's changes to leaseholder protection apply only to England.