Clause 1 - Mandatory rate relief onformer agricultural premises
Rating (Agricultural Premises and Rural Shops) Bill
10:45 am
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire, Conservative)
My hon. Friend may be amused to know that the Labour party counts both North Swindon and South Swindon as rural seats. Those who, like my hon. Friend, know Swindon well will see the absurdity of such definitions. There is also the more serious question of whether or not a Secretary of State would be tempted to twist the definition of rurality to suit purely political purposes rather than to establish objective indicators.
If the Government are dividing the country into urban and rural areas and giving specific privileges to areas according to status, the House should insist that those definitions are clear, open and evidently fair, so that those who fall one side of the line or the other can accept that that happens as the result of a fair and transparent process. That need for clarity and fairness is greater than ever in view of the fact that we are increasing the reliefs available to certain types of business in rural areas.
One accepts that there will be places that fall narrowly on one side of a line or another. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome said that it was absurd to classify farms as being in non-rural areas. However, some farms are inside the area of the Greater London Authority, for example, and it would be tough to argue that that was a rural area. Some of our most urban areas contain businesses such as farms that are generally found at the heart of our rural areas. Thus there will always be definitional problems.