The hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Raynsford) was in danger of making a speech that exceeded his longest to date—although, I am glad to say, only by a minute or two. I feared that he was settling in for a serious attempt to do that.

I welcome the Bill, even though it does not go quite as far as I would like to incorporate the proposals that I put forward in my ten-minute Bill on 25 February. I hope that there will be time for the Government to consider including my proposals, even if there is a shortage of draftsmen's time. Perhaps a shortage of draftsmen's time has prevented that so far, but if we do not have an early election I hope that there will be time to incorporate in this Bill my modest proposals.

I am glad that the Bill is supported by the Opposition parties. The hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) said that the Labour party supports the right to buy. Will he please communicate with Labour party councillors in Bolton who do not appear to have received the message? Those councillors must still be under the influence of the former Member for Bolton, West, Mrs. Taylor, who was the Opposition spokesman for housing. She said that the right to buy would be given over her dead body.

If the Labour party has been converted, I ask the hon. Member for Norwood to tell Bolton councillors because they appear to be the most recalcitrant council in the country in cases of defective title when every other council takes steps to help tenants in that position. I hope that the hon. Member will communicate soon with Bolton councillors. A right-to-buy action group will be meeting on 3 April to ask for a statement from Bolton councillors about the right to buy and Bolton council's obligation to reconsider its position.

It was good to hear from the alliance spokesman, who appears to have departed—perhaps because his party had so little to say before. The recent booklet "The Time has Come" might have included some reference to the right to buy, but it did not. That proves what a low priority the subject has for the alliance.

As a result of introducing my Landlord and Tenant Bill, I have received a number of representations on the subject. I shall now address my remarks to the Government's Bill. Over the years freedoms have been introduced to help people gain more control over their lives. I am pleased that that is particularly so in housing. The Housing Act 1980 gave council tenants the right to buy their homes, at least where there is no defective title, which I attempted to remedy in my Bill.

Schedule 19 of the Housing Act introduces help for leaseholders of private flats in challenging service charges levied by their landlords. The latter provisions and other helpful measures in previous Acts were consolidated in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.

For many years there has been pressure from both sides of the House and from all sides of the professions to give more rights to private tenants and leaseholders. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors working party set up in 1983 made recommendations about the management of blocks of flats to the then Minister of Housing, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing (Mr. Stanley). That committee, headed by Mr. James, the senior surveyor of Grosvenor Estates, included representatives of the Law Society, estate agents, landlords and tenants.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will say whether the rights in part V arid elsewhere in the Bill for recognised residents' associations to be consulted on the appointment of management agents is also fully available to tenants of public housing. I have spoken recently to residents' associations on council estates and I believe that they should be given full rights to examine all options for the management of their estates.

I have also heard of problems experienced by tenants in shopping precincts. Will the Minister consider extending the rights to cover such tenants? I have experienced a series of problems at Harwood shopping precinct in my Constituency where the company under the control of Mr. Horrocks has proved to be unto-operative in its relationship with the tenants.

The James committee called for changes in the law to allow leaseholders to challenge the appointment of managing agents and the cost of fees and insurance premiums, and to provide standardised leases and a system of voluntary arbitration for defective clauses in existing leases. In particular, the James committee called for the creation of sinking funds to cover the cost of renovations and major repairs where there is no provision in leases. It stressed the importance of such funds being held independently and for them to be attached to the block rather than to individual landlords. There have been instances of receivers claiming such funds when a landlord goes into liquidation or goes bankrupt. The committee also said that it was unjust that such funds should be taxed as income. I hope that those points will be noted by the Government in drafting their promised additional amendments to the Bill.

The Nugee committee supported most of the James committee's recommendations, which the Government accepted and added some welcome proposals of their own in drafting their Bill. Part II solidifies the principle which the courts have already implemented in appointing receiver managers to take over the management of blocks when the management has broken down. That is formal acceptance at last of the principle that leaseholders, even with short leases, have a greater interest and therefore a greater investment in the property than the reversionary landlord.

Part III is the natural extension of that principle and gives the right of compulsory purchase when a long-term solution to negligence and mismanagement is required. I believe that some guidance is required on how the ultimate management should be undertaken. It is no good residents jumping out of the frying pan of incompetence into the fire of ignorance and disunity.

Clause 41 gives to housing associations the powers to manage blocks of flats. These may prove useful sources of expertise with which leaseholders could happily cooperate. It is of particular importance for finance to be channelled to housing associations so that they can take on the role on a permanent basis, or as a temporary measure while bringing a block back on the rails. I ask the Government to provide a fund to provide bridging loans for residents to allow them to implement part I's pre-emptive purchase arrangements as well as the compulsory arrangements under part I.

I speak as a leaseholder who has recently joined other residents of a London block in purchasing the freehold voluntarily from the owner. Fortunately, we were in a position to arrange the finance and to be confident of arrangements for the efficient management of the building afterwards. Others may not be so lucky. We should help them and so ensure the success of the Government's legislation.

A number of hon. Members and the Federation of Private Residents' Associations, which represents 200 associations of private tenants throughout the country and was represented on the Nugee committee, would like the Bill to go further. The federation is concerned about flat dwellers in private blocks still being treated as second class citizens, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) said. The federation says that, as council tenants have a right to buy, it would like the powers under parts I and III to be increased for private tenants. The federation is worried about leaseholders whose leases are getting too short to be saleable and would like the Leasehold Reform Act to be extended to flats, especially because of the current research into the legal implications of flying freeholders and their strata titles, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington referred.

My Bill was unopposed and was supported by a former Solicitor-General and two former Environment Ministers. It is designed to extend the council tenant's right to buy when the title is defective. My Bill also intends to give fair market value to landlords when their property is compulsorily purchased. My Bill is truly for landlords and tenants, and I hope that the Government will accept my proposals as amendments to their Bill.