My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and my noble friend Lord Smith for supporting the amendment and recognising that we have a shared frustration about the process that has been undertaken to deal with this deferral. I am not sure that it is a shared frustration, but we have a shared understanding of how that 530,000 “other” block was dealt with. We are each convinced that the way with which it was dealt does not justify the conclusion that was reached on the 800,000 and the 300,000. However, we recognise that we are not going to get any more of a detailed breakdown from where we are.
If we follow the line of certainty and how important it is to its logical conclusion, we would never change. We would never have a revaluation. The purpose of regular revaluations was to deal with the equity of the situation: that the burden should be shared fairly between businesses on an updated, regular revaluation. That was the whole propose of it. My noble friend Lord Smith made a very telling point, which he has made previously, that the volatility that the Government are seeking to buy off by this deferral is in a sense being paid for by businesses that have done less well in recent times and that might have expected some reduction in their business rate assessment. That seems unfair to me.
My noble friend Lord Smith said that we may have been seen as the “awkward squad”. I confess to that and ask for another 200 offences to be taken into account. That is our job. Both the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and my noble friend Lord Smith have concerns that the rhetoric and the analysis that are coming from this exercise do not altogether chime with what they see and understand on the ground, given their individual expertise and council leadership. Indeed, there are messages from some of the business community. The CBI is on record as suggesting that the benefits of this deferral have been overstated.
We are where we are on this. We are not going to change it from where we stand today. We will clearly monitor the situation.
On consultation, proper consultation is consulting in advance, before you take a decision, to get people’s reactions. I do not know—perhaps I can ask and the Minister can write to me—at what point the prospect of the deferred revaluation was first raised with ratepayer representatives. It would be helpful to know the starting point of that consultation. Having said all that, given the hour, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.