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Finance (No. 2) Bill

That is an important point. As we said in Committee, we believe that one of the weaknesses of the current regime is that it is already heavily skewed in favour of commercial property. Leaving this impediment in the Bill may make the position worse. I shall say more about that shortly, while—I hope—not entirely stealing the thunder of my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire. The listing issue is a particular impediment for residential property companies that seek REIT status. In Committee, I made the general point that the REITs regime appeared to have been designed primarily with commercial property in mind, residential property having been included almost as an afterthought. I said at the time that I wanted to initiate a debate on that, and on what might be done to deal with it. That there appears to be a problem with residential REITs is illustrated by the fact that several major commercial property companies, including Land Securities and Hammerson, have already indicated that they have decided to convert to REIT status. As far as I am aware, no residential property company has yet made such a firm commitment.