I wonder if the finance Secretary would agree with me also that there ought to be some kind of de minimis element in this, in as much as I referred to the case yesterday of Harry Hyams and the Centre Point building that was empty, right in the centre of London, a prime space, for many, many years in the 1970s. The problem that we're trying to address, if there is such a problem, relates to large potential development sites that have significant numbers of homes that could be built upon the land. There's little point in going after individual plots here or there that might or might not be developed for one reason or another. David Melding yesterday referred also to the need for flexibility in the way in which such a tax might be implemented.

In the review that is currently going on by Oliver Letwin, he's going to be looking at large sites, and he recognises that there are many reasons for even large developments not being proceeded with—limited availability of skilled labour, for example, limited supplies of building materials, limited availability of capital, et cetera. He gives a whole host of potential reasons that are nothing actually to do with the perceived ill of land banking itself. Even in the case of large sites, we will have to hedge around the potential tax with all sorts of reliefs in order to avoid creating injustice, even for significant property development companies.