Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

I am not sure that in this Government such constitutional certainty applies, but I shall not be tempted into that subject, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I know you well enough to know that you would prevent me from doing any such thing. Let us assume that we all now know what ““relevant”” means. The Minister has helped us. He said that in his view—and the hon. Member for Cambridge has told us that that is the only view that matters at this stage—for this purpose the relevant property values are every property in the kingdom. We now know the scale of the exercise with which we are confronted—to fulfil the requirements of the amendment, a gigantic bureaucratic exercise would have to be undertaken every year. Why? So that the Secretary of State could slip a little written ministerial statement on to the Order Paper giving the reasons for his decision on whether there should be a revaluation. I am not sure that that takes us much further forward. All too often, that is the trouble with amendments that are supposed to add value. I am not talking merely about technical faults or drafting errors, which are entirely forgivable as we do not all have the resources behind us that the Government have. And, goodness knows, even when the Government try to draft a Bill these days, they end up having to make hundreds of amendments due to errors here and there. We are simply talking about the efforts of humble Back Benchers who try to improve Bills with amendments such as this one yet, sadly, on this occasion the amendment does not pass muster. I cannot claim to have analysed the amendment in great depth. I merely glanced at it, but if I can identify such a degree of deficiency by that superficial approach, goodness knows what would happen if we had the time—alas, sadly, we do not—to look at it in any depth or at any length. This is but the briefest analysis. When I read the amendment I wished I had tabled one of my own. It would have been more interesting, and probably more relevant, if instead of the Secretary of State initiating the process and carrying it through, some impartial body, detached from Government, could have been charged with that responsibility. We are in an era—are we not?—of quangos, NGOs and all the other acronyms that are supposed to give a view different from Government. I have doubts about that, as usually if bodies are Government-funded their view is not terribly different from the Government’s. However, if we used that approach, we might at least be able to rely somewhat more on the process outlined in the amendment. All in all, I am not terribly impressed with the amendment. I am not very taken with it, and if the hon. Member for Cambridge is rash enough to try to put it to a vote I suspect that he may find that he has embarrassingly little support.