Mr. John-Mark McCafferty:

There already are certain tax breaks for institutional landlords. The Government seems to be making positive sounds around some kind of intervention there. In terms of the measures that we are advocating, our interest relates to smaller landlords. There is a number of strands here. One is particular interventions relating to sales. We have the tenant in situscheme and it is working. We did ask for changes to capital gains tax for the scheme, but perhaps it is working out okay as it currently stands. It is more around PAYE and the treatment of income tax. A blanket tax credit for small landlords would not necessarily change any behaviour in and of itself, and there would be an awful lot of deadweight in it, as the Department of Finance would call it, so it would be a huge cost to the taxpayer. The challenge is to find a way of structuring a tax credit or some kind of tax break that incentivises a change in behaviour in terms of substantially longer-term leases of ten or 20 years to emulate the experience elsewhere in northern Europe. We are back to our friends in northern Europe again. It is not the easiest thing to design but it is not impossible.

We need to look at other tax incentives that may operate over a longer period, tying in certain behaviours and looking at how they can be transposed into the landlord world. A blanket tax credit for small landlords will not have much efficacy. It is about incentivising some kind of change that will lead to improved security of tenure.