§ Mr. MALCOLMasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is proposed to collect the Undeveloped Land Duty in the following cases: where the owner cannot develop the land for want of capital; where the owner is willing to develop and has tried every available means to sell or let for the past ten years without receiving an offer; where the owner is prevented from developing his land through a lack of proper approaches; where the owner cannot develop his land without the concurrence of adjoining owners, who refuse to co-operate in a joint scheme for deve- 183W lopment; and where the owner has previously developed his adjoining land and the result has been empty property and serious capital loss from over-development; and, it so, whether he will take these cases of hardship into consideration with a view to relieving them in the provisions of the Budget of 1911–12?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSESo far as the circumstances to which the hon. Member alludes operate to diminish the market value of the land, they would equally operate to diminish the liability to Undeveloped Land Duty. Whether in any particular case the liability would be altogether extinguished would depend on the precise facts of the case.