No, but the noble Lord is replacing a system which is based on a consistent set of valuations with individual snapshot valuations, so he is creating potential new anomalies and concerns.
I do not wish to detain the Committee. This has been an extraordinarily interesting debate. I have esteemed my noble friend for decades, not just in recent times. He has one of the most innovative and illuminating minds we have seen, both as a commentator and as a parliamentarian. My respect for him is absolutely enormous. However, I do not think that this is a practical or sensible way to proceed. I have tried to deal with this extremely kindly. I have not troubled the Committee with some of the range of anomalies, although some of them have come up in the debate. We are not debating the issue of higher bands—although we could on another occasion—or the property thing. We are debating the Bill which is before us. My noble friend dismissed the idea that there might be administrative costs and anomalies. He was not too worried about that, but I have to be and I stand by it. Many local authorities are making massive savings in personnel. We have taken £35 million out of a budget of under £200 million. We are taking another £25 million out of it. This is what is expected of us by the country. With respect to my noble friend and my friends on the Front Bench, one must be careful about adding new burdens to local authorities, particularly when they come up with these kinds of anomalies.
I will study Hansard very carefully, but, with respect, I do not think that my noble friend properly addressed the points put by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about parallel registers, the two bands, the issues of inheritance, gift inter vivos, disguised nominee ownership and IT requirements. Retrospectivity was perfectly skewered by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. There is a tremendous amount here which needs to be clarified.
There is also a fundamental point, which I know that many people may not agree with or have forgotten. Council tax is supposed to be a tax levied to pay for council services. It was not created to be a tax on wealth or property. We can have one of those if we want. We have inheritance tax and graded stamp duty. There have been proposals for a mansion tax. Others have proposed a wealth tax. At one time, Mr Healey was going to build an office with staff to do that. Council tax is intended to be a tax which raises—
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