Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

No, I am not in favour of the revaluation, and I cannot imagine, given all the fuss, why the hon. Gentleman could possibly have been deluded into believing that I would. I apologise to him for reading out those pieces, but I wanted to bring home to the right hon. Gentleman that no one thinks that his method makes any sense. Those who wanted a revaluation think that the Minister is not doing a good job and so do those who did not want one. He has managed to unite the nation in believing that he has made a bad decision. We are not persuaded of the need for revaluation. The purpose of a revaluation is to correct grossly disproportionate movements of the housing market compared with the last revaluation, but house prices are currently converging relative to the last revaluation. As we argued when the council tax was introduced in 1992, a system of bandings means that there is no need for regular or frequent revaluations. The only reason why Labour wants to revalue and re-band the council tax is to tax the uplift in property values that has taken place since the early 1990s. We oppose the plans for higher taxes on hard-working families and pensioners. The revaluation has already taken place in Wales, so we will move amendments in Committee to continue the transitional relief and thus stop further tax hikes next year, after the relief is phased out. As the Minister has said, the Bill essentially does three things. It removes the requirement for a new valuation by 1 April 2007—we agree with that. It will take away the 10-year rule for revaluation, on which we agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Finally, it will empower the Secretary of State to determine when a revaluation should take place, with which we do not agree. As Labour Members will testify, the Library has produced an excellent brief that details the problems that have occurred because of revaluation in the past and all the problems due to the postponement of revaluation, especially. Given the nature of the council tax and the bandings, we think that the most sensible thing would be for a decision to be taken on the Floor of the House—by way of primary legislation—each time revaluation needs to takes place. That is important because such a decision should be taken not at the whim of the Secretary of State, but by Parliament.