Rating (Empty Properties) Bill

I do not think that there would be examples of people wilfully keeping premises empty, but I can envisage how a bill landing on a doormat might prompt change if a community asset has not been used for a number of years, perhaps because the committee members or the activists who kept things going have moved on. The general presumption of the policy is to give incentives to owners of empty properties to put them back into use. There is a balance to be struck in the case of charitable organisations that outweighs the exemption, with the £2,200 threshold and charitable status covering many village and community halls. It is much more difficult to extend new zero rates to different types of owner, such as public bodies. Here the problem of definition comes into play. We could all invent exemptions for types of owner and types of building: we could come up with a list of worthy causes as long as our arm. The purpose of the regime proposed in the Bill is to give owners an incentive to return their empty properties to active use, whether they are vacant city offices or rural halls. We do not wish to subsidise properties to lie empty. The application to public buildings, including parish halls and community halls, creates a very difficult situation in which the definition of a community or village hall would make the legislation unworkable. As I have said many times, we will examine the issue of exemptions in the summer, and I therefore ask the hon. Member for Poole to withdraw his amendment. I congratulate him on tabling it, because it reflects a real argument that will take place in communities, but I think that, on balance, it is likely to foster circumstances whereby community halls would be allowed to lie empty rather than be put to good active use. Nothing is more visible and more likely to damage a community, whether it is a village or an urban neighbourhood, than an empty hall at the end of the road that is usually covered in weeds and graffiti. We want to return such buildings to use for the benefit of the community, and I fear the amendment would not achieve that.