Council Tax Revaluation

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:54 pm on 19 October 2005.

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Photo of Sarah Teather Sarah Teather Shadow Minister (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) 1:54, 19 October 2005

I will give way in a moment.

If we look back to 1991, we will discover that when council tax was introduced the Conservatives believed, as was stated earlier by the Opposition spokesman, it would never need revaluation because of the banding structure. The then Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr. Ian Lang, said:

"The banding system irons out much of the effect of relative changes in property values within an area which, under the rating system, brought regular pressure for revaluation."—[Hansard, 12 November 1991; Vol. 198, c. 918.]

But in 2003, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar changed his party's mind. Responding to the debate on the Local Government Bill, he said:

"We recognise the need periodically to revalue properties for the purpose of council tax . . . We support the revaluation being made on a regular and predictable basis."—[Hansard, 7 January 2003; Vol. 397, c. 64–65.]

A month later, his colleague Mr. Clifton-Brown, a party spokesman on housing, argued for five-yearly revaluations in Committee on the Bill. Then the Bill moved to another place, and Lord Hanningfield, the Conservative spokesman, proposed no revaluations at all. The reasons he gave were interesting. He said:

"council tax is regressive. Its impact on people on a low income is greater than its impact on people on a high income. I accept that as a fact."

He went on to say:

"The value of property seems . . . to be an unsafe proxy for the ability to pay". —[Hansard, House of Lords,17 July 2003; Vol. 651, c. 982.]

Those are arguments that the Liberal Democrats have been making for nearly 15 years.