For several years now I have been working with campaigners and affected residents to push for safeguards around the increasingly dodgy market and practices that have sprung up among leasehold home ownership, including through my work on the All Party Parliamentary Group for Leasehold Reform. This week, Labour said enough is enough and pushed for a vote in the House of Commons on abolishing new leaseholds altogether.

There are currently almost 5 million leasehold properties in the UK, two thirds of them being flats, but the arcane system we currently have denies people power, control or even a say over things as fundamental as the safety, security and future of their own homes. We’ve known for years that the system is broken, but the reforms that people have been crying out for have not happened.

People shouldn’t have to wait any longer for basic rights over their own homes. The Government needs to tear up these rules and immediately bring forward new laws that end this scandal. Colleagues on my side of the House have been pressing the government to bring forward the promised Leasehold Reform Part II Bill and to ensure it contains all the recommendations set out in three Law Commission reports. Those reports included the following key measures:

Firstly, an end to the sale of new private leasehold houses at the point the Bill comes into force with its provisions applied retrospectively to December 2017, and a workable system to replace private leasehold flats with commonhold.

Secondly, in the interim, greater powers for residents over the management of their homes, with new rights for flat owners to form residents’ associations and a simplification of the Right to Manage.

Thirdly, the right to extend a lease to 990 years with zero ground rent at any time; or a cap on ground rents when extending a lease to 0.1% of the freehold value, up to a maximum of £250 a year.

Finally, and crucially, a crackdown on unfair fees and contract terms by publishing a reference list of reasonable charges, requiring transparency on service charges, and giving leaseholders a right to challenge rip-off fees and conditions or poor performance from service companies.

I will never forget one family of leaseholding constituents informing me they had been charged thousands of pounds just to have a hallway repainted. That’s not the dream of home ownership; that’s a nightmare and a financial trap.

Sadly, the Conservative Government did not support our motion. Labour stand with homeowners and would-be homeowners, not with rip-off merchants. We will keep pushing for change.