Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

I support amendment No. 3, which was tabled by my former colleague on Wandsworth council, my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford). It is an ingenious amendment, which introduces flexibility and could go a long way towards dealing with the problem of perceived and actual unfairness in specific local authority areas. I should like to show what the amendment could do in the case of the two billing authorities in my constituency, Christchurch and East Dorset. Those local authorities have experienced much higher than average increases in council tax per dwelling since 1993. A much higher than average percentage of people who are 65 and over live there. There is therefore probably a strong case for considering revaluation to get a fairer distribution of the burden within those local authority areas without affecting the overall grant distribution mechanism.