Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s clear reiteration of her position. She has raised a number of interesting points here and in Committee. Her final words were that she had no intention of blowing revaluation out of the water, but as I pointed out in Committee, this amendment would cancel revaluation altogether. That position is not only more definitive than that taken by her colleagues in the other place, but it means there can be no future revaluations ever. I know noble Lords opposite have shown a commitment to council tax, and are concerned about its credibility. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has made that very clear in Committee. I would have thought that their position as they have presented it is very problematic now. I want to allay the noble Baroness’s concerns. She is concerned that it is an unfettered power. Let me first deal with the fact that it is not an entirely new power for the Secretary of State to set the date of and the timing between revaluations. As a veteran of the 2003 Act the noble Baroness will know that under existing provisions the Secretary of State already has the power to set the date of revaluations; he can do so at any point within the 10-year cycle. The only restriction on the timing of the use of the power is that if it is going to be used it must be used before the 10th anniversary of the previous revaluation. In other words, he already has complete flexibility to set the date of revaluations at any time, provided it is before the 10th anniversary. The Bill seeks simply to remove the 10-year maximum time frame between revaluations, and leave the Secretary of State with the power to determine when any future revaluation might happen. It is simply a variation on the previous power; it provides more flexibility. The noble Baroness also asked why we now seek to change the existing arrangement for the timing of revaluation. This was raised in Committee when the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, argued that we should simply bring forward a Bill that stopped the intended revaluation in its tracks and provided no power to set a new date. That is what the amendment did. He also suggests that we should wait until we receive Sir Michael’s final report before making any changes. If we had taken the first route, and simply cancelled revaluation—and it is not a cancellation—without providing a power to set any future date we would have, in effect, cancelled revaluation for all time. We have made clear at every stage of this Bill that we have no intention of doing that. We are committed to postponing but not cancelling revaluation because we believe it is right to maintain a fair alignment between house prices and council tax bands. That is where the certainty lies. The noble Baroness pressed me on clarity. The whole point about postponing the council tax revaluation until we have the full findings and recommendations of the Lyons report—which is looking at form and function in local government in the context of a lot of changes as well as council tax funding—is precisely because we want to introduce more clarity into our deliberations on council tax revaluation when we take them. We will have the benefit, not only of his judgment but of the collective judgment of everyone who has taken part in that process. It is a generous and open consultation and from the interim report itself one can see how seriously and how widely Sir Michael is engaging with the process. We announced to the House at the earliest opportunity, in the light of that decision and the need to keep costs to a minimum, that preparatory work was stood down with immediate effect. I am sure that the noble Baroness would have been the first to challenge me about why we were letting the VOA run on with its work if revaluation had stopped. We had to act immediately to remove the statutory deadline. That in itself is clear and certain, too, because if we had not done that the VOA would have been in an impossible situation of remaining under the statutory obligation to revalue. Let me add one further point about clarity and certainty. Even if the Government had concluded—we have not—that revaluation was likely to take place in this Parliament, the revised timetable for Sir Michael’s inquiry at the end of this year and the need to take full account of his work would have left insufficient time for us to consult on his recommendations and then come forward with a properly developed package of reforms and a date for revaluation. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to consider whether that is not a commitment to the greatest clarity in a process that we have laid down as clearly as possible. It was asked why we did not wait for Lyons. We thought it sensible that, while we were putting through this necessary legislation which I know the opposition support, we should also take the opportunity to remove the 10-year maximum timetable for revaluations. In doing that, we would provide Sir Michael Lyons with a clear field for his inquiry to come forward with such recommendations as he thinks appropriate and with no pre-existing constraints. That is an important definition of independence. However, in order to ensure that revaluation can happen at some point, we must give the Secretary of State a power so that we have the necessary mechanism in place for setting the date for revaluation. Nothing would have been gained by waiting for his report before we took legislative action. The noble Baroness expressed concern about the Secretary of State’s unfettered powers. I am sure that we will return to the subject on other amendments, but I reiterate that this order-making power, which was passed by both Houses in 2003, is subject to the power of affirmative procedure in the other place. It is open to full scrutiny, debate and Division. It is not an unfettered power. This amendment would return us to a situation that denied us any chance in the future to update a council-tax system that would be based on increasingly out-of-date valuations and with no mechanism through which to address that without further recourse to primary legislation. That is not a sensible way forward and I do not believe that noble Lords opposite believe it is either. We need a system that allows the Government to proceed in due course in clarity, in the full light of Sir Michael’s work and in the light of our recognition that the maintenance of a fair alignment between house prices and council tax is linked to wider questions about the structure of council tax and the operation of council tax benefit. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness will accept my reasons and reassurances and withdraw the amendment.