Rating (Empty Properties) Bill

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley). I am not on my usual territory with this debate, but at least the Financial Secretary is a familiar sparring partner. I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who spoke with his customary eloquence. The Bill raises some important issues, which the Financial Secretary, who is no longer in his place, set out carefully in the initial presentation. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath talked about the need for cross-party consensus, and there might at least be some small consensus in that none of us wants to see large numbers of empty properties. They cause problems for development, can blight the landscape and for a whole range of reasons are a bad thing. No doubt we will hear more about small shops and town centres from the Minister for Local Government—he referred to them briefly during an intervention—when he replies to the debate than we heard from the Financial Secretary. As a member of the all-party parliamentary group on small shops, I certainly share the many concerns about the fate of small shops, whether in towns, villages or even cities, such as Inverness, which I represent. Over recent years Inverness has seen a decline in the number of small shops and a gradual replacement of some previously existing retail premises in the older part of town perhaps with charity shops. They tend for a number of reasons, perhaps including the rating environment, to be the sort of tenants to whom landlords find it easier to let. To share those concerns does not necessarily mean to share the Minister’s view that the Bill provides the right way forward to address the problems. I have a number of concerns and questions to raise, which I should like the Minister to answer. I am concerned about the process that the Government have gone through to reach the Bill. I am concerned about the genuine purpose of the measure and, most important about its impact. In opening the Financial Secretary presented a macroeconomic argument for the Bill, but it is in its microeconomic impact at local level that it will be judged. In that I share some of the concerns of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley) about the variability of the Bill’s impact across the UK. Those serious worries are genuinely held in areas in need of regeneration. As a Member representing a Scottish constituency, I should point out that the Bill applies to England and Wales only. On one level, therefore, perhaps I should welcome it on the basis that it might promote more property development in Scotland, but I will not go down that route because these are serious matters that will affect the whole country one way or another, including Scotland. My biggest concern with the process has to do with the lack of consultation. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) pointed out that this was one of the few items from the Lyons report that had been implemented with alacrity. In his opening remarks the Financial Secretary listed a whole range of consultations that were either going on or about to start. We appear to have consultations galore, except on this proposal. While this measure was proposed in one part of the Lyons review, paragraph 8.6 stated:"““The Government should conduct a review of exemptions and reliefs to consider the scope for removing inappropriate subsidies and distortions””." That is clearly a recommendation for a review, a discussion and consultation to seek evidence from the wide range of parties who have a strong interest in the matter. The Financial Secretary referred to a blizzard of reviews. Perhaps the Minister the Minister for Local Government will confirm whether that specific recommendation of the Lyons review has been taken up. As other speakers have said—I do not wish to trade bodies with other hon. Members—there has been a lot of feedback and many different responses, which I am sure all hon. Members taking part in the debate have received. A range of contrary views has been expressed. We have heard about consultations on rate relief for brownfield developments. We have heard about consultation that is shortly to take place on the position of leaseholders—a matter to which I am sure other contributors to the debate will return. We have also heard about proposals for 100 per cent. relief for regeneration in assisted areas. That rather invites the question why, if we are having consultations on all those matters, the Government are rushing ahead with the Bill. We were previously treated to an exhibition of joined-up government. I am afraid that one element of that ““joined-upness”” has left the Chamber now. If the Government seek to have a joined-up, coherent approach to reform of the business rating system, why rush ahead with this one element when all the other elements are being consulted on? It suggests that the motivation behind the Bill is perhaps not as straightforward as the Minister would have us believe. The Government are trying to persuade the House to support the measure on the basis that they are thinking about all these other nice things. They hint that, when those consultations are completed, countervailing measures that will modify the impact of the Bill in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent will be introduced and we will see then an overall balanced package, which is not before us today. I am not sure that many outside the House will want to accept those assurances. They would like to see the whole package—the results of the consultation and the countervailing measures as well as the measure contained in the Bill—before deciding whether it is worth accepting. To do otherwise might be considered to be accepting a pig in a poke.