Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

Can I intervene briefly? I say straightaway that the Conservative Party is not against the council tax—obviously because we proposed it—but I think we all agree that there could be other ways of forming local government finance to supplement the council tax. I hope that the report of Sir Michael Lyons and others will find ways of doing so as the council tax is beginning to reach a totally unacceptable level. I think that there are still ways of using the council tax without a full-scale revaluation. I suggested those ideas to Sir Michael Lyons and to Neil Kinghan—a very senior official in the noble Baroness’s department—and I hope they may get fed in. I do not think that we need a full-scale revaluation; there are other ways of proceeding. I shall not explain them in great detail here but they are totally consistent with our amendment. There are ways of supporting council tax and dealing with changing house values—they dochange in value—but we are against giving this power to the Secretary of State as there could be other ways of proceeding which justify our amendment.