Council Tax (New Valuation Lists for England) Bill

Before the noble Baroness sits down, perhaps I may intervene, because she mentioned something that I said. Basically, we want to freeze the system for the moment. Given that the Government need the legislation to stop the revaluation, we do not want anything to happen with regard to moving bands or anything else until the Lyons review has reported and until there has been a big dialogue about the future. At the moment, for example, pensioner groups are refusing to pay council tax. I advise them to pay the tax; they should not be putting themselves in the position of going to prison. But the system is so unpopular that there has to be a big debate about how it goes forward. Basically, the amendments that we are putting forward are to ensure that there is no change in the bands and that nothing happens other than a cancellation of the revaluation until the Lyons review has reported. Then we will expect there to be further legislation, as my noble friend Lady Hanham said a little while ago. Our amendments are attempting to do that. They give the Government the powers that they need but, at the same time, they propose that we wait to see what happens. As I suggested, there are different ways of proceeding which the public might accept. Therefore, let us have a chance to have a dialogue about those things rather than put things in statute that are not necessary at the moment.