Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

As the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) said, the amendment is similar, although not identical, to the one that we debated in Committee. The Government’s position remains the same. Let me emphasise that the Bill obliges the Secretary of State to come before the House at the time of a revaluation date and subject the order to debate and, no doubt, a vote. I assure the House that that will give it the opportunity to consider and challenge his reasons. The amendment has been slightly reworded to make it clear that the duty on the Secretary of State to consider at least once each year whether to set a date for revaluation and to give reasons should include, but not be restricted to, an assessment of the degree of divergence in property values. Not least because it still refers to an assessment of the degree of divergence, I ask the House to oppose it if the hon. Gentleman wishes to press it to a vote. Although we readily accept the argument for a revaluation of council tax to maintain a fair alignment between house prices and council tax bands, we can see no case for the regular publication of statements. When we debated the similar amendment in Committee, it received no support from the official Opposition. Indeed, the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) said that he was not sure that it would be terribly helpful and that it was probably unnecessary. I would go slightly further than that. The mere fact that there would have to be a statement at least once a year would undoubtedly stir up excitement and controversy among hon. Members, particularly Opposition Members, the press and the general public, and that would in turn lead to considerable uncertainty and anxiety for council tax payers. Even more of a problem is the specific requirement for an assessment of the degree of divergence in property values. Whatever the hon. Gentleman may say, that would simply encourage the view that there must be some sort of objective ““golden rule”” that would lead, or even require, the Secretary of State—or anyone else—to determine whether a particular level of divergence justified a revaluation. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Cambridge said in Committee that the similar amendment that we considered there did not assume the existence of any such golden number. He also said that he and his party were not trying to get an objective view of the conditions for revaluation. However, publication of the sort of assessment that he envisages would inevitably encourage people to think that if, for example, X per cent. of houses in band Y had increased in price by more than Z per cent., there would be a case for revaluation more or less automatically. Furthermore, they would infer that, if the Government then decided for whatever reason not to proceed with revaluation, notwithstanding that evidence, they would somehow be flunking the issue. Conversely, it would be inferred that, if a specific level of divergence had not been established, an insufficient case would have been made for revaluation. The Government reject the notions that a specific level of property price movement necessarily justifies revaluation and that divergence that falls short of that level of property price movement precludes any case for it.