My Lords, I will test the opinion of the House on Amendment 115 in a minute. However, before I do so, I will say how much I appreciate the contributions from all noble Lords. It has been an absolutely fascinating debate. As others have said, we are really getting into the core philosophy of what sits behind this Bill. I feel slightly like the skinny fly-half who, having got hold of the rugby ball and made a dash for the opposing side’s try line, finds himself up against a veritable wall of the opposition. It is only seconds later that he finds that a substantial number of heavyweights from his own side have propelled him over the line and applied him and the rugby ball into the mud to score a try. We have not scored a try yet. That, of course, depends on noble Lords—the referees.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his summary of this and the other amendments—I found him to be wholly convincing. I will not go into a great deal of detail, given the well-rounded debate we have had, but Amendment 117 seems to address an issue which actually borders on discrimination on the grounds of tenure, and it is a really perverse outcome for commonholders as a tenure. It is a tenure to which the Government should be giving support—we all know that. Excluding them cannot be right.
Various noble Lords have spoken about extending the number of buy-to-let properties. That would rely on their accepting the basic premise of a charge to the leasehold and freehold properties as a default mode—I shall come back to that in a minute.
Amendment 126 is necessary because, unless the benefits under the Bill inure to the benefit of the buyer as a signee, the Bill would simply act to the prejudice of the seller, which would remain and lead to unfair loss, cost, worry, delay and disadvantage—and we cannot have that. A reduction to zero charge would be beneficial and I would support it, but, again, I go back to the question whether I would start from this point.
I welcome a lot of these amendments and would welcome some of those from the Government if I was not troubled by their basic premise of deciding that orphan cost liabilities must be spread between two categories of the innocent. It is a matter of policy; it is not a matter of human rights. I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, said on that, and I found it absolutely fascinating. The fact remains that freeholders as we know them very often have a minority interest by value, so the questions remain: where do you find that real, available hard cash to fund the remediation, and after what degree of litigation, delay and cost?
Despite what the Minister said, and I admire his tenacity, I remain unconvinced by the arguments. On sub-11 metres, I do not see that the argument has been made for the quantifiable difference under the Bill that the Government are trying to achieve, bearing in mind that the Worcester Park building was a four-storey building. I wish to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 115.