Written questions by Powell.

Communities and Local Government, when her Department plans to respond to the consultation entitled Modern leasehold: restricting ground rent for existing leases which closed on 17 January 2024.

Over the course of this Parliament, the Government will further reform the leasehold system. We will enact remaining Law Commission recommendations relating to enfranchisement and the Right to Manage, tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rents, reinvigorate commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework, and ban the sale of new leasehold flats so commonhold becomes the default tenure.The Government has made clear it intends to publish draft legislation on leasehold and commonhold reform in this session so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional parliamentary scrutiny. We will announce further details in due course.

What steps she plans to take with Cabinet colleagues to recover public money spent on contracts for goods and services that were not provided during the pandemic.

We are appointing a fixed-term Covid Fraud Commissioner through an open competition that is running now. The Commissioner will make sure that everything is done to return the money owed to the public purse, with a primary focus on pandemic PPE contracts. The Commissioner will report to the Chancellor, working with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and their report will be presented to Parliament for all Members to see.