I shall try to pick up from where I left off. I may or may not have heard the Minister aright so this is just to check. The very good Library briefing on the Bill references the Treasury review into business rates. I shall refer to the Library briefing, then the Minister can say whether or not I have misunderstood. It says:
“On the longer-term proposals, most respondents stated that … revaluations should happen more often”—
we agree with that. But then it says that
“the gap between when the revaluations were assessed and when they came into force should be shorter than the current two years”,
which was one of the points that I was trying to make.
I may have misheard the Minister—if I have, I apologise—but the point that the review was making was to say yes to a shorter gap than five years, and the Government have pitched on to three. At the same time, the assessment year should be shorter than the two years that it currently is—that is what I think the review was saying, and I was trying to say that part of the argument for reducing the gap between the assessment year and the revaluation year is to make it narrower.