Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-09-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
John Lytton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for the comprehensive answer he has given to the Motion. I am also most grateful to all other noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. I would never go so far as to try to question matters of reasonableness and accuracy, or to cross swords with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, especially as he is the Convenor of our Cross-Bench group—and a much cherished and honoured Convener as well However, two things come out of this. First, there is an urgent need to sort out CCA online. I am particularly grateful to the Minister for inviting me to discuss the process issues, because they are numerous. If I could arrange to come and see him with a team of people who could explain what the issues are and why they are so grindingly irritating to ratepayers, and give such a bad impression of the whole thing, then trying to clear the air on that would be very good Secondly, yes, the overall system needs fixing and there is to some degree a focus on these SIs in that context. But various things follow from that: there has to be proper finance for it overall—a point mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham; there has to be a justification of the impost in absolute and relative terms, compared with other things, and we have lost sight of that a little; and there has to be in the change in the style of management. We are to some extent in this together and if the Government are serious in saying, "We are pro-business", we cannot have a situation where businesses are set on edge by such a system. It is entirely negative and unnecessary, so there has to be a change in the style of management Part of the key to this is the transparency of information. As soon as people start thinking that information is being concealed from them, they become suspicious that there is some malevolence hiding behind it. The proof of the pudding will obviously be in the eating here. The whole point about a non-domestic tax, particularly since it affects so many businesses, is that it must rest on the taxpayer’s confidence that it is being dealt with efficiently, expeditiously and, above all, fairly. We should bear in mind that business rates have a long and cherished heritage. When I started dealing with rating matters back in 1975, it was one of the lowest cost and most efficient means of collecting money for local government purposes. If we do not get that right, the alternative is mounting further appeals. If this provision eliminates individual appeals and starts giving rise to a whole series of class actions, the impediment—the drag—that it will cause in the system will be the same This has been a very welcome opportunity to air these views. There are certain things that I dare say the Minister and I are probably destined never quite to agree on. It would be almost inconceivable if that were the case. I appreciate that an effort is being made here, but we need the financial resource and manpower to go into that to try to sort this out. If it is not sorted out, it will continue to cause us problems. Having said that, and with thanks to all noble Lords who have spoken and to the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.