Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

I was about to come to that point. My hon. Friend must be clairvoyant, too, because he has read my mind and anticipated the next section of my speech. The subject of the valuation base is very interesting, if dry. The whole business of local government finance is incredibly complicated. It involves about 200 different sections, including algorithms and all sorts of complicated mathematical formulae, one of which relates to the council tax. House prices are rising in almost all areas in the United Kingdom and that means that the valuation base would probably increase on revaluation. I suspect that that would happen because the general area would improve. Moss Side is a prime example of such improvement. Houses were demolished, new houses were built and green parks, new schools and new doctors’ surgeries were created, thus improving the whole area to the extent that one of the most crime-ridden areas in Europe is now a pleasant place to live. The private sector has built houses in the area that sell for a great a deal of money. That proves what successful wholesale refurbishment of an area can do. I suspect that if an area were sensitively demolished and refurbished, the council tax base would increase. I want to make another important point about the increase in the council tax base. My hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley did not agree, but the complicated algorithms and formulae that are used to calculate the rate support grant settlement include a redistribution mechanism if the valuation tax base is higher than average. For example, areas such as the Cotswolds, where the council tax base is high, lose out on the rate support grant settlement because some of our council tax is redistributed. The Government redistribute from areas with high council tax bases to areas with lower council tax bases.