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Housing (Hertfordshire)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has the same problem in Cheltenham that we have in St. Albans, which is that people buy many homes. We cannot just say that we will have a tax on second homes. Some people that I know have portfolios of eight, nine or 10 homes. For example, if there are three or four people in a family household, there is nothing to say—we know because we have explored this in the Select Committee—that each of those household members could not be registered for each of those homes. It is a little disingenuous just to say that a tax on a second home would work. In St. Albans, it would not solve the problem, because the property market is so lucrative that people buy property portfolios and keep properties to rent them out on the highly lucrative buy-to-let market.