Rating (Empty Properties) Bill

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I thank you for the advice that you and your office extended to me, and to my hon. Friends, in framing and tabling the amendments. I apologise for not having been here for the opening of the Committee stage. I spoke in the debate on the Ways and Means resolution, and also on Second Reading, and opposition to the measure and scepticism towards it are close to my heart. I was genuinely sorry that I could not be here for the beginning of the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms). I know that he made an admirable and cogent case, but I am afraid that I was detained elsewhere on family business. The amendments fall within two groups. They deal with the broad question of planning and land use, but amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4 are naturally grouped together, because they form part of one coherent argument, and amendment No. 5 is separate, because although it deals with planning matters, it relates to a different part of the Bill and is meant to deal with a different specific eventuality. Amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4 are essentially tests of the Government’s integrity. Amendment No. 5 is an attempt to achieve the Government’s intentions more effectively than we believe the Bill itself is capable of achieving them. In that respect, whether the Government accept amendment No. 5 is a test of their sincerity. If Ministers genuinely want to achieve the goals stated in legislation and argued for by them in earlier debates, we believe that they will have to accept the amendment. Let me briefly explain why we tabled amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4. They deal with a new and specific exemption that we wish to introduce. In our debate on amendment No. 6 we discussed the whole question of exemptions, their appropriateness, and whether they should be contained in primary legislation or in secondary regulation to be presented at a later date. The Minister accepted that there were exemptions that should be included in primary legislation. We had a brief exchange on the subject when I intervened on him. I am afraid, however, that his customary authority lapsed at that point, because he presented us with a circular argument. We pointed out that we wished to introduce a whole set of exemptions that were entirely in accordance with custom, practice and previous legislation. Cases for all those exemptions were made with exemplary clarity by my hon. Friends. The Minister’s case against the exemptions was that it would be inappropriate to deal with them in primary legislation, but he accepted that the Bill contained exemptions for charities and sporting ventures—because, he said, they were in primary legislation. That is a circular argument. The Minister is saying that an egg is an egg is an egg, because he says that it is an egg. I am afraid, however, that this combination of yolk, albumen and shell is not an egg, because it does not pass muster with me. There is no logical reason why one exemption is in primary legislation and another set of exemptions are considered appropriate for secondary legislation, other than precedent and ministerial edict. We know that the Minister is capable of logic, reason and fluent argument. We have seen him display that capability many times at the Dispatch Box. It is incumbent on him now to explain to us why certain exemptions must be in primary legislation while others are fit only for regulation. It will not be good enough to argue, as he did earlier, that a period of consultation is necessary before we introduce exemptions. That argument would strike at the heart of the Bill. On Second Reading and in the Ways and Means debate, Conservative Members argued for consultation. Why? Because when Sir Michael Lyons introduced the idea of removing or amending the relief for empty properties, he argued explicitly that there should be consultation before business rates were reformed, probably in about 2010. The Government chose not to engage in that period of consultation. Instead, they decided to legislate precipitately in what was characterised in the previous debate as a rush to plunder. The Minister, and the Government, cannot have it both ways. They cannot say, ““We need to consult on the exemptions before we produce secondary regulation. All that can happen in good time, my dear man,”” and at the same time say, ““We need to produce this legislation quickly.”” They cannot say, even by implication, ““I am afraid that when he requested consultation, Sir Michael Lyons was insufficiently seized of the importance of the importance of legislating quickly,”” and then, when it is convenient to them, say, ““We believe that Sir Michael Lyons was wrong to call for consultation then, but we need consultation now.”” The Government must explain why when consultation occurs, it is always on their terms and never on anyone else’s. They must also explain why, having gone to the trouble of asking Sir Michael Lyons to make a series of recommendations on this measure and on local government finance in general, they accept only the measures that they can introduce quickly, and which automatically yield revenue, and why they have not given adequate consideration to those other thoughtful—and perhaps more complex, but none the worse for that—series of arguments that enjoined on them a degree of caution in proceeding. [Interruption.] The Financial Secretary to the Treasury asks from a sedentary position, ““What about the amendment?”” As I am sure he is aware, there are in fact three amendments—Nos. 2, 3 and 4—which come together, and there is also amendment No. 5. Amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4 deal with planning and land use. The Financial Secretary and his junior—although perhaps not junior for much longer—the Economic Secretary put it to us in the original Ways and Means debate that the principal aim of the Bill was the more efficient use of land. That cause is dear to the hearts of all Members present. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) serves on the board of a housing association, and my hon. Friend the Member for Poole is greatly interested in housing matters, and I know that they are keen that land should be used more efficiently, whether for housing or commercial purposes. However, the suggestion that the Bill is all about the more efficient use of land was undermined by the presence at the Ways and Means debate and on Second Reading of the Economic Secretary and the Financial Secretary. Why were they invited in to make the case for Department for Communities and Local Government legislation? Did the Treasury have no confidence in DCLG Ministers? Did the Treasury feel that the Secretary of State and the Minister for Housing and Planning were not capable of making the case? Heaven forfend.