Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker; I should have phrased my argument in the following, slightly different way. Because I find the alternative so impossible, it is very important to make this system work, which is why this amendment is so crucial. It would not be so crucial were it not for the fact that, if we do not make the council tax arrangements work effectively, we will not have a better alternative. So this debate is as important as I suggested to you that it was, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when you first took the Chair. So the issue is: how do we approach this part of the mix that makes the council tax? The council tax is a property tax. Few countries have been able to handle taxation without some form of property tax. Ireland tried to do without one, but I suspect that it has been trying to change back—a difficult thing to do. The real problem was identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois). He rightly said that he represented the Thames Gateway, where the changes promised—if that word is not too generous—by the Deputy Prime Minister will make this problem especially difficult. The difficulty is that perception and reality are often very far removed from each other when the system involves so many components working together. I do not know about the Minister’s constituency—or yours, Mr. Deputy Speaker—but I am willing to bet that not many people in anyone’s area would be able to explain the interpenetration of the various elements, year on year. Therefore, we need to make the system more transparent rather than less transparent.