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Finance Bill

Despite the comments of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), REITs are a largely non-controversial issue; indeed, there is consensus across the House that they are a desirable instrument. For the ordinary consumer—the retail investor—REITs are important because they are easy low-cost mechanisms for entering and exiting the property market. They would allow people to diversify their investment portfolios, which is what we want, to enable people to manage risk better within their investments. For the Government, there is a desire to achieve a closer alignment between the taxation of direct and indirect property investments. I fully recognise that there are issues that the Government must tackle—such as definition, legal issues, issues of withholding and foreign investors, and the ring-fencing of ownership and management versus the actual activities that take place on property. Surely, as we look around the globe, not least at Australia and the USA, there are plenty of examples of how all those issues have been tackled. The new clause is, from the perspective of the Liberal Democrats, essentially a wake-up call. It is about saying to the Government that they should please get a spur into Treasury officials, of whom we see so many in and out of the Box day after day, and get something sorted so that REIT investments can be made properly available to people in the UK.