The Government have no plans to cap service charges for tenants and leaseholders, given that would prevent necessary funds from being raised for legitimate purposes. However, we do plan to tackle unregulated unaffordable ground rent provisions through legislation. As the White Paper published today makes clear, we want to make the process of converting to commonhold as easy as possible, and we will set out proposals in the draft leasehold and commonhold reform Bill, which is to be published later this year.

As the hon. Gentleman will know, we intend to bring into force this year the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, which is designed to drive up the transparency of service charges so that leaseholders can challenge them more easily if they consider them to be unreasonable. We intend to strengthen the regulation of managing agents, imposing minimum standards in relation to qualifications.

Let me explain, as simply as I can, what we want to do. As the White Paper makes clear, we will ban the sale of new leasehold flats so that commonhold becomes the default tenure, and we will ensure that the process of conversion is as simple as possible for those in existing leasehold blocks who wish to make this change.

I well recognise the problem. Historically, ground rents were nominal sums but over the past 20 years we have seen a very different system develop. We have made a commitment to take action on unregulated and unaffordable ground rents through legislation, and we will provide further details in due course.