The clause is simply titled “Extent”. It states:

“This Act extends to the United Kingdom.”

By definition it will include Scotland. I want to press the Minister a little on the matter. One of the complaints about the PGS is that it is light on detail thus far. With regard to how it will operate in the devolved Administrations, both Scotland and Wales, the Government have provided very little indeed. It has  said in effect that it will be left up to the two respective Administrations to decide within their own nations.

The Minister tweaked my nose a little earlier by suggesting that there were some Conservative councils that he thought were in favour of the planning gain supplement. I have to tell him that the Scottish Executive, who I understand are effectively a coalition of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, were also consulted on how the PGS would apply in Scotland. Their response to the 2005 consultation was excoriating. Among other things, they said in their reply—I have a copy of it here if the Minister wishes to glance at it—that the new tax was “misconceived”, that it would render otherwise sustainable economic developments economically unviable, that it was “highly difficult and complex”, that it would act as a “disincentive” and would hinder a generation, that it would place extra burdens on the delivery of affordable housing, a theme we have heard again and again this morning and which now resonates from north of the border, and that it would

“act as a break on development in most areas of the United Kingdom”.

I take it from that that they include Scotland as part of that.

The Chancellor himself hails from that part of the world. Perhaps we could ask the Minister to explain what further discussions he has had with the Scottish Executive, given that in Scotland it would appear that the devolved Government have severe reservations about the introduction of this tax, despite the fact that the First Minister in Scotland is, as I understand it, a member of the Labour party, although whether he is a member of the socialist housing group, or whatever it was, I am not entirely sure.

Perhaps the Minister could at least give us some view of how the tax might operate in Scotland and, if he is unable to say in detail—