My Lords, while listening to this debate I have been trying to get my mind around the mechanics of how some of this might work. Perhaps the Minister might comment. It seems to me that on day 1 the discount is met by the
developer, not by the Government or the purchaser. Other things being equal, you would expect that discount to be represented as a charge against the property. If nothing else changed, should that property be sold it would be sold at market value and the vendor would have an obligation to account for the discount—presumably, in this case, to the Government. If Amendment 41A were accepted, the detriment of that charge would gradually reduce over a number of years, and if there were a disposal there would be a smaller amount to be repaid.
The issue arises as to who the amount gets repaid to—who the charge is discharged in favour of. The Government presumably get some sort of windfall along the way. If they do not, how does it work? Should there be a residual recovery of the charge, who would get the benefit of it? If the charge is written off on the basis of Amendment 41A over a period, in a sense there is nothing to recover. It seems that that is a mechanism to address the issue the noble Lord, Lord Horam, and my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours were pursuing about how the market will work. It would be relatively straightforward if that were the mechanism.
But where are the Government in this in terms of scoring against public expenditure? They do not take a hit on day 1, but do they anywhere along the line? Presumably not if the discount is on some basis fully written off. But if it is not and it is recovered by the Government, that has got to be reflected somewhere. Perhaps the Minister can help us with that.