Rating (Empty Properties) Bill

My right hon. Friend makes a sensible point, but I am worried about the fact that some people may use the delay for their own advantage. If we can find a way to close off that option, I would be pleased but, on balance, I prefer to have the change rather than not. I turn now to the owner’s estate bankruptcy order and the Insolvency Act 1986. I agree that that is a good Act and that it has clarified matters considerably, but we have reached the crux of the problem. The Government are right to want to ensure that empty properties make a proper contribution to the cost of services, but they must make sure that the provisions do not run counter to other legislation, and bankruptcy is a serious problem in that regard. If people are forced to pay to the state money that would otherwise go to people who have a prior demand, a prior requirement and in my view a prior right, they have a right to feel aggrieved. I would take it further, as I suggested in an intervention earlier. It is utterly wrong that the state, which can carry these things more adequately, has used its power to make laws to protect itself against the interests of individuals, for whom bankruptcy is a greater disaster. If I am a small business man and someone goes bankrupt, my bills are paid only after the bills owed to the state are paid. I find that unacceptable. The state is able to know how much it is likely to lose over any year and make proper provision. Unlike many individuals, it can carry that loss because it deals with such a large number of bills. All of us in our constituencies have seen cases of individuals who have suffered considerably as a result of bankruptcy. If we add to that the fact that, before creditors’ bills are paid, the local authority will be able to take money for a property which is empty due to bankruptcy, it would be entirely unfair. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Poole for putting that issue in such a clear way in the amendment. Proposed new subsection (1A) (j) is just as important. It becomes more important in a sense because the present Government have made arrangements, which I supported, to take a broader attitude to bankruptcy—in the past, we have been too tight about it. The Americans have a better way of looking at it and as a result have been able to create many jobs; unlike us, people there have been prepared to take risks. Under the Government’s arrangements we will have more deeds of arrangement so the subsection becomes the more important. That is also true of paragraph (k), which seems to complete the trio that covers everyone who might be affected by bankruptcy. I repeat that I am not seeking to support or protect the bankrupt. I am concerned about people who will be affected by a bankruptcy, a deed of arrangement or a winding-up order. The terms of the paragraph would mean that we were not providing circumstances in which the local authority could get its fingers on money that would be more properly used to redeem someone’s debt. Paragraph (l) relates to the person in his capacity as a liquidator. I am involved in representing a constituent on such a liquidation. The ownership of the property is extremely important to any chance of my constituent getting a reasonable amount of the money that he is owed for medical supplies. His happens to be a very sad case. The fact that he has suffered in one of the longest liquidations in history, mainly as a result of actions taken by the previous Conservative Government, saddens me a great deal. If the liquidator in this hugely difficult process were to pay rates on empty buildings, I doubt whether by now there would be any money left for the people for whom the liquidation technically has taken place. I use my constituent’s example because, were I in the Minister’s place, I would think that paragraph (l) was not terribly important because in normal circumstances liquidations are relatively quick. Where things are owned abroad, liquidations can take a very long time. Although I am sure that chartered accountants have their uses—sometimes I wonder what they are—there is no doubt that they are not the fastest of people when it comes to liquidations. I hope that the Minister will take the terms of paragraph seriously because it could have extremely serious results. In most cases, although the local authority may not be the place where I would put what money remained in anything that amounted to a bankruptcy, the process is likely to be relatively quick. The amount paid to the local authority will not be too dreadful and money will be left for the real creditors. In the very long liquidation to which I have referred, the effect of the Bill could be very serious, so I hope that the Minister will take the amendment seriously. It is a pity that the Opposition have had to go to the difficulty of producing the list of examples of those things that should be exempted. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Poole will not mind my saying so, but Oppositions are not professional in terms of such matters. These are matters that civil servants—much maligned under this Government—are very good at handling. If the civil service had produced a list of exemptions for the Bill, many of the issues that we have raised would already have been dealt with. We could have discussed many other issues much more sensibly if the Government had done that work on the exemptions using their powers, opportunities and resources. In speaking in favour of the amendment, I want to say that it ought to have been significantly better and I am sorry that the Government did not take the opportunity to do the work. By saying that, I do not in any way cast doubt on the work done by my hon. Friend and his colleagues. The fact that we have produced so many questions in the short time that we have had to prepare the amendment, and after such a lack of consultation, argues for better consultation on such matters. Not only would the terms of the amendment been improved had they been included in the Bill presented by the Government, but the attitude towards the issue among the public, for whom the amendment will be an effective step, would have been greatly improved. The amendment is about ensuring that there will be fewer cases of people feeling hard done by by the system under which they labour. That issue above all brings me back, but in order, to the key concerns of principle. Taken together, this series of amendments would ensure that the legislation is seen by the public as fair, reasonable and knowledgeable, not merely thrown at them as so much legislation has been over recent years. Will the Minister be kind enough to take a message—I hope from the House, but certainly from me? One of the problems that has beset his Government is their unwillingness to go through these processes in detail, some may say boring detail, as we have tried to do in this case. They have put on the statute book primary legislation and, I regret, badly thought out secondary legislation and regulation, with the result that people are increasingly unwilling properly to accept Bills such as this one. The Government are right to introduce the Bill. They are right to rate empty properties and to insist that people contribute to the cost of services. They are right to ensure that all properties are available for use at a time when climate change must be fought at every level. What is wrong is that they have not given the House proper opportunity to debate the real issues—small though they may be—that affect our constituents.