Mike Penning supports a Conservative amendment to remove an ambiguity in the wording of the Bill which can cause leaseholders to be overcharged stamp duty when they purchase the freehold.

Mike Penning: I promise not to detain the Committee too long. Not least, I will try not to go into the legal jargon that my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) had to use in order to make sense of this, and thereby clear the Chamber.

The hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) accused the new clause of being too simple, but it would resolve the problem very quickly. Defective legislation is wrong. We are here to introduce legislation that supports our constituents and supports the country in moving forward. The Government admit that they have defective legislation on the statute book, yet one would have thought that in the past five years the great minds that have been in post in the Treasury might have got their act together and moved forward. This is the sort of defective legislation that an incoming Government might expect to have to resolve, but it is that of an existing Government trying to introduce measures to help people in purchasing the lease of their property.

I must admit that this would probably not affect many properties in my constituency. However, having grown up in a seaside town once I eventually got away from London in my early teens, I know that there are huge effects in seaside towns with large purpose-built leasehold blocks, as well as in many of the cities of this great country. I find it difficult to understand why over the past five years the great minds of the Treasury have not made proposals to repair defective legislation that is taxing people of this country as it was not designed to do.

I support new clause 1 and hope that my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire will press it to a vote.

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