Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-10-16
Topic: Housing
Simon James Hoare (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon). I draw the House’s attention to my interest, which I think is in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The hon. Gentleman and I served—I will not say with distinction, but we certainly served—on the Local Government Association resources panel for some years All Members will recognise that, as a result of our perfectly properly facing up to trying to repair the disastrous legacy that the Government inherited in 2010, the local government family has certainly faced a disproportionately heavy share of the burden. As we know, that has had an impact on our communities up and down the country. In my judgment, local authorities have acted perfectly properly. I served for 12 years as a district councillor, for seven of which I was running resources and the budget, and my then finance director, Frank Wilson, and I were always at great pains to find any way whatsoever to bring in extra money. We went down the back of every sofa, armchair and chaise longue to find coinage wherever it could possibly be hiding. When the Government presented us with an opportunity to raise perhaps a couple of extra quid, we grasped it like drowning men in a turbulent ocean I was interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Minister said about flexibility, which is of absolute importance. My understanding of both the Bill and indeed the Lords amendment is that this should not be viewed not as a revenue raiser for local authorities, but rather a spur to maximise housing stock accessibility. There cannot be a colleague in the House who does not meet people—at their advice surgeries or at other constituency engagements—raising the problems of accessibility to housing, the inability to get on to the housing ladder and the length of and delays in the planning process, all of which make a contribution to the difficulty of getting on to the housing ladder itself. Anything that can be done to increase access to existing housing stock has, in my judgment, to be welcomed very warmly If I may, I want to probe what the Minister said and to read into the record his very important comments about flexibility. Proposed new subsection (1A) in Lords amendment 1 reads: "In subsection (1)(b)"— if anybody wants to buy shares in the man who makes the keys for the bracket signs, I suggest they do so now, because there are an awful lot of brackets in this measure— "(maximum percentage by which council tax may be increased)" The key word there is the conditional "may". It does not have to be increased, and local authorities should view this as not merely a cash cow but, as I say, as a spur to increase accessibility. I hope that my hon. Friend will consider providing very clear guidance to local authorities—perhaps via the Local Government Association, but also directly to finance directors and leaders of councils—that they do have such flexibility My hon. Friend the Minister suggested one or two things. I am concerned about cases in which the clock is not reset when a property is sold. I appreciate entirely that there may be circumstances in which there is a paper transaction between brother and brother, or sister and sister, to try to dodge the additional tax, but I suggest that that is probably, given stamp duty and so on, a rather unlikely scenario.