Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

What the hon. Gentleman says is, in part, true. Council tax benefit partly offsets the regressive nature of the tax, but the tax remains the most regressive major tax in the Government’s taxation armoury, even after the use of council tax benefit. Revaluation would probably make the council tax even more unpopular. That is presumably why the Bill allows revaluation to be called off. On the other hand, failure to revalue makes the council tax more unfair and more out of date. That sums up one of the reasons why we oppose council tax. It is simultaneously bad to revalue and bad not to revalue. I am still puzzled by the Conservative party’s position on the Bill. Conservative Members voted against Second Reading. The effect of voting against, if it had been taken up in all parts of the House, would have been to defeat the Bill. If the Bill had been defeated, the present law would remain. The present law mandates a revaluation in 2007. By contrast, when the Committee considered whether clause 1, which is really the only clause in the Bill, should stand part of the Bill, the official Opposition failed to divide the Committee. I shall be fascinated to see what they do tonight on Third Reading. I hope they discovered the error of their ways on Second Reading and have realised that others may have noticed that what they proposed was, in effect, to carry on with revaluation, which is the opposite of their announced policy. I shall not detain the House further. We are happy to speed the Bill on its way to another place. It is a very small part of a major reform of local government finance, which we all wish to see, and we wish to see the Bill pass through the House tonight.