Clause 1 - Mandatory rate relief onformer agricultural premises
Rating (Agricultural Premises and Rural Shops) Bill
12:15 pm
Ms Hilary Armstrong (Minister of State (Local Government and Housing), Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions; North West Durham, Labour)
I am sure that the Library keeps a close note of our proceedings and will see how we are working.
Proposed new subsection (6F) defines properties eligible for relief. Paragraph (a) specifies that they must meet the conditions in proposed new subsection (6G). Any property that does so will be eligible for the relief, and there will be no restrictions on who occupies it. Rates are levied on the occupiers of property, not the owners, but they are assessed on the nature of the property. Whoever is the ratepayer—whether a farmer owner-occupier, tenant farmer or third party—will receive the relief if the property qualifies for it.
I am able to be so clear about this matter because in our consultation last November we suggested that relief be restricted to farmers, as it is farmers whom we want the rate relief to help. That consultation may have affected what people outside the House believe about our intentions. However, we dropped the restriction because the response to the consultation was clearly against it. Opposition Members have clearly judged matters by their experience. The Government listen and respond to consultations and we recognised that farmers and the wider rural economy would benefit if under-utilised agricultural premises were brought into other uses, where the potential for that exists.
Farmers may establish such enterprises as part of the farm. However, the enterprises may be set up by family members or by a company legally separate from the farm, even if it is in the same ownership or occupation. Farmers will also benefit if they let or sell part of their farm to a third party to operate a separate business. That indirect form of diversification brings the same benefits, and properties used in that way will also qualify for the relief.
I hope that the matter is now clear to Opposition Members. The new rate relief will be available with respect to small-scale properties used for non-agricultural activities, which were previously in agricultural use. The purpose of the relief is to help farmers who want to diversify but who are discouraged from doing so by the additional rate burden. The clause will halve the rate burden, making it easier for farmers to move some of their property into small-scale, non-agricultural activities.
The new rate relief is not intended to subsidise other rural businesses, including those that are already well established, or those that are not on farms. We are taking a range of other measures to support rural businesses, as set out in last year's rural White Paper. The new rate relief is one measure aimed at a problem that concerns farmers at present.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.