I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman has not thought this through at all. It may be a most telling debating point to say that he thought of it years before I was heard of, but he has forgotten v/hat he thought of in the process. I do not have the wonderful memory which some people have, but I think that what the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends said about the abolition of Schedule A might make interesting reading. I shall look it up and let the hon. Gentleman know my findings at a later date. I do not think that he was making the same argument then as he is making tonight.

Let us come back to the Clause. That is what we are really talking about. This does not affect any of the arguments that I have made in response to the Clause. The law has so far held that feu duty and ground rent are not to be charged against general income. This is unquestionably the case.

I am sorry that as a consequence of the abolition of Schedule A and the new code of taxing rents, which the hon. Member must not overlook when he talks about this matter, certain people will pay some more tax, but what they are paying is the tax which they were managing quite happily to escape because Schedule A revaluations were not carried out initially by a Labour Government, successively by Labour Governments, and subsequently by Conservative Government. That is the truth of the matter. It is worth looking into the history to see where the story starts.

I cannot recommend the Committee to accept the Clause because—I do not wish to pin my argument on this—it is defective in drafting. If the hon. Member wishes to put it down on Report, I am prepared to tell him in which technical sense it is defective. I offer him that facility if he wishes to have it. But it is on the more general ground that if I accepted it I should be perpetuating an anomaly which I should find it impossible to defend that I ask the hon. Member to withdraw it.