It is very hard to get any lawyer to explain the differences between English and Scots law, because English lawyers do not understand Scots law and Scots lawyers do not understand English law. In this instance there is even more of a muddle because the Government, owing to their political deficiencies, have no Scots Law Officer in the House and have apparently not thought it necessary to have a representative from the Scottish Office here. We are left to the lucubrations of the Financial Secretary on what seems to be fundamentally a legal question.

I am not concerned for the moment with the history of the matter, which seems to me to turn on the question, "Is it right to regard a Scottish feu duty as something in the nature of an interest payment, a charge, or, on the other hand, as rent?" The right hon. Gentleman and the Treasury have apparently persuaded themselves that it is rent, because they say that it is in some way—as it is—associated with land. But rent is something paid by a tenant to a landlord, and in England, at any rate, it corresponds with an interest in the land which we call a tenancy. The landlord has a corresponding interest in the land; he has a right to go back on the land at the end of the tenancy. The rent is in the nature of a periodical payment which ends when the tenancy ends. I may be a long period—it is in a building lease—or it may be only a matter of a week or two. It is very elastic.

But the feu has two peculiarities which have nothing in common with that. One is that it goes on for ever, subject to one thing. It is a security. In other words, if the feu superior is not paid he can irritate the feu and take back the property. I think that irritating a feu is difficult, but I can say nothing about that. As my hon. Friend pointed out, feu duties are simply, on the other hand, a form of investment. I think that as an executor I am the owner of about half-a-dozen small feu duties. They are unmarketable things. They are sold by advertisement in the papers through writers to the signet or solicitors. I have never seen the property and never expect to see it. They go on being paid. I have no obligation in respect of the property, nor has a feu superior under Scots law.

The Financial Secretary is, perhaps, forgetting that there is something corresponding to a mortgage in Scotland. Talk in Scotland about equity redemption and one is not understood, but talk about bonds or dispositions in security and one is. That is their equivalent to a mortgage. There is no question but that an interest on a bond or disposition is chargeable against one's general income. When one looks at the real nature of these things one finds that one is dealing with something that is unknown to English law, something which represents a conception we do not understand. However, so far as one can look at it logically, it is far nearer a bond or disposition in security than it is to an English rent.

One talks about a ground rent, but what is it? I have never understood the difference between a ground rent and any other rent, except some of the very short rents. There are, for example, rent charges, which are another variety, and it would be interesting to know what the position is on that subject. They are a north of England matter as a rule, but I suggest that this is not a question of a number of people having successfully "got away with it"—I will not say "dodged the law"—and it is a question of whether it is fair to treat this kind of payment in this way.

On going into the matter further it may be found that what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) said is the right answer and that a great many of these charges are illogical. As to keeping to what we have now, the feu, I suggest that the Government could consider, with the advice of the Scottish Law Officers and others, what it is right to do about feu duties.

To add a personal word, when I first saw the new Clause I said to myself, "This will be interesting" and I was inclined to think that my hon. Friend was wrong. Having heard his views on the subject, and knowing a little about it myself, I have come to the conclusion that he was perfectly right, not necessarily on the point about what has happened in the past but on the broad question of how to treat this kind of payment. I hope that, in these circumstances, the Government will undertake to look at the matter again and let my hon. Friend know their decision as soon as possible so that he may revert to it on Report.