Clause 1 - Mandatory rate relief onformer agricultural premises
Rating (Agricultural Premises and Rural Shops) Bill
11:00 am
Mr Damian Green (Ashford, Conservative)
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I hope that the Minister will explain, in response to the amendments or in a clause stand part debate, why she thinks such businesses will be eligible when everyone else who has considered the Bill thinks that they will not be.
The Minister might be aware that the Association of Convenience Stores also thinks that the proposed rateable values that we seek to change are unrealistic. It says that stores with the turnover that would be covered by the proposed levels of rate relief operate below the margins of profitability and that those with a turnover significantly below that level are widely seen as no longer viable and are unlikely to survive in the long term. That clearly applies to other businesses that might be set up under diversification proposals. I hope that the Minister will take on board the fact not only that there is incoherence in the plucking out of the level in the Bill but that those who are most closely connected with the businesses that operate under such difficult conditions in rural Britain say that the Bill will have much less of an effect if the Government stick to their limits rather than accepting those that we have proposed. One can, of course, introduce only one of the limits, but not all of them. I merely invite the Government to explain why their figure is better than those that we have suggested in amendments Nos. 10 and 11.
Amendment No. 12 is slightly different and has two aims. The first is to ensure that the level of the rateable value is kept up to date as revaluations happen and if the crisis for businesses in rural areas is long term. It is small in scale compared with the money that such businesses are currently losing, but we do not want the situation to worsen in time and if the crisis continues. That is why we seek an annual look at the level set by the Secretary of State.
The second and perhaps equally important aim of the amendment is to give Parliament some say in the process. Once the legislation has been passed, we shall not want the details to disappear into the interstices of bureaucracy and decisions made by administrative fiat. We want the House to have a handle on how such legislation continues to operate. That is why, having carefully considered the Liberal Democrat amendment and ours, I think that ours is superior. I say that in the knowledge that I shall make generous comments about other amendments tabled to the clause by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome. I seek no advantage for my party; our amendment simply has a better handle on the Government than amendment No. 1.
Several detailed and key improvements that need to be made to the Bill would be made under our amendments. Amendments No. 10 and 11 are clearly not compatible. If the Minister says which she prefers, we shall not press the other. I invite her to accept the fact that those most intimately concerned with running and preserving rural businesses think that the level of rateable value suggested by the Government in the Bill is not adequate and needs to be changed during the Bill's passage.