Rating (Empty Properties) Bill

I will come back to that. The hon. Gentleman mentioned another important point earlier about rateable values and rent in different sectors. He and the hon. Member for Fareham referred to the impact of the internet on the retail sector. To take the argument to its logical conclusion, if every shop in this country found that its business was being done through the internet so that all the shops were empty, the rental value of those shops would be naught, zero or nothing! Nobody would want to rent them, so the empty property rent charge would be naught as well. The argument does not hold up.