Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

Absolutely. If and when we reach the point where revaluation is necessary, people should be given full information about the effects of not having it—not only on the family concerned but on the amount of money available for all those services. The gearing effect, which Conservative Members acknowledged, is particularly pronounced when it comes to the police and fire services, where a precept is built upon it. It can be made to sound as though not revaluing will have a disproportionate effect on the amount that is raised locally for those services. People will say, ““I’m not prepared to pay a 74 per cent. increase””, not realising that the burden on an individual family is not 74 per cent. of the total council tax payable but 74 per cent. of a certain part of it. The effect on the family’s budget is small compared with what some Members have suggested. If that stability is to persist, and if it is to be based on property, we have to be honest about what that means to people. We cannot go on basing it on the current valuations ad infinitum, otherwise in the long term we might as well pluck a figure out of the air and say, ““This is the amount we will all pay””, with no more reasoning behind it than that. We will do ourselves and the country a disservice if we do not engage with the Lyons review properly, are not transparent about what we do, and do not use this opportunity to look at the relationships between local government and national Government, and the population whom we are here to serve and all the services that we decide to provide. We need to look again at the moneys that we raise from property and accept that under that system revaluation will continue to be necessary.