My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for moving this amendment. As noble Lords will know, the matter of whether the five years of the rate relief scheme should appear in the Bill was also raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.
As currently drafted, the Bill would allow the relief to apply indefinitely. The draft regulations that we published for consultation would provide that the relief is limited to five years from 1 April 2017—so the five-year period of the scheme appears in secondary legislation rather than in the Bill. We have taken this approach to retain the ability to repeat the scheme for later years without the need to return for more primary legislation. This will allow us to consider the success of the scheme in a timely manner as 2022 approaches.
Nevertheless, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has made a very strong argument for why the five years should appear in the Bill. We have been clear that the purpose of the Bill is to implement the Chancellor’s commitment to offer five years of relief, and we now accept that such a fundamental aspect of the policy should appear in the Bill. But I am grateful that the noble Lord also recognises the value of retaining the ability to extend or repeat the relief scheme without another Bill. Therefore, we also agree that we should take a power to change the period of the relief and that this power should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, as the noble Lord set out.
As I have discussed with the noble Lord—and I appreciate the opportunity to do so—we intend to move our own amendment at Third Reading, achieving the noble Lord’s aim but ironing out one or two drafting defects just to ensure that we can make these changes. We will table the amendment tomorrow.
Once more I thank the noble Lord for his constructive and helpful approach. I hope that, with these assurances, he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.