Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

There are two reasons why I shall be very brief. First, I am a late substitute for my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), who is sadly unwell. I hope that all hon. Members will join me in wishing her a speedy recovery. Secondly, I understand that there is some annoyance on this side of the House that we are taking this business rather than another debate today, which is a point that hon. Members raised at business questions. However, it strikes me that the protest would be more effective if we were to dispatch the business of the House without unnatural prolongation to demonstrate to the Government, as I said last Thursday, that we could have had both debates on the same day. shall reiterate my party’s position. We support the Bill and want to see revaluation stopped, for the simple reason that under the system of local government taxation that we would adopt—local income tax—no valuations or revaluations would be necessary in the first place. On amendment No. 3, the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) has made a serious point. I agree with the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) that if we support the general idea of council tax, amendment No. 3 is an interesting idea that should be explored, and I hope that the Lyons committee will explore it. There is, however, a serious objection, which Conservative Members raised almost as soon as the hon. Member for Mole Valley rose to speak. As the amendment stands, the Secretary of State’s power to order separate local or regional revaluations could be used in a politically biased way. The hon. Member for Mole Valley has repeatedly raised another serious problem in the debates about the Bill—the connection between the council tax banding system and the grant that the Government hand out to particular local authorities. It would not be beyond the wit of the Government to use that connection to produce a politically interesting result, which has not been unknown in the past. In reply to that point, the hon. Member for Mole Valley said that he would institute a different system of calculating the grant. I was interested to hear him say that he would use a system based on income levels in various districts, which is the precise basis for equalisation under local income tax, and I urge him to go much further along that line of thinking.