§ Mr. Weetchasked the Attorney-General what progress has been made relating to streamlining the collection of stamp duty on registered land transfers.
§ Mr. RidleyI have been asked to reply.
I assume the hon. Gentleman is referring to suggestions that the machinery of the Land Registry and the Inland Revenue might be combined in some way so that registered land transfers need only be presented to one of those departments instead of both. The scope for arrangements of that sort has been examined, but it has not been possible so far to devise a scheme that would be both workable and economical to operate. There have been no recent developments.