Perhaps I had better begin by answering first the first question by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) on cost, because this is, perhaps, the easiest one. So far as I can estimate it, the hon. Gentleman is quite right: the cost is small; perhaps £1 million a year. However, that, of course, is not really the point, although he was quite right to have asked that question. I hope that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) will forgive me if I try to deal first with the consequential questions which his hon. Friend raised. It is not from any disrespect to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh, East. I promise him he was quite right in what he said—though I am not saying that it is necessarily the case that I accept it; but he put it perfectly fairly and quite rightly.

The whole matter as to whether mortgage interest or interest on other forms of indebtedness or acceptance of obligations should be distinct or should no longer be distinct perhaps from ground rent is, I quite agree, no doubt bound to be a perennial and debateable point. It is not disposed of by the new Clause. Rent has the distinguishing characteristic—at least, it is intended to have—that it confers on the payer of rent a right to occupation of land or premises. This is what rent is supposed to do. As to what is or is not rent I will come to in a moment.

Payment of rent conveys that right, and it is in this sense that it is perhaps distinguishable—though I dare not debate it further, for I am sure that I should be clean out of order—from the forms of interest payment which the hon. Gentleman has suggested. I quite agree that this is a very interesting subject for debate but I doubt whether it arises here. What does arise here, firstly, I think, is whether or not feu duty is properly called a form of rent. [Interruption] The hon. Gentleman raised this point. If he did not I certainly shall not pursue it, because I certainly would much rather not, but according to a note I took down of what he said, he queried whether it really was more analogous to a ground rent or more analogous to a mortgage interest. I think that he did.