Peter Ainsworth (East Surrey, Conservative)

No nuggets of hope here, I am afraid. The purpose of clause 6, as originally drafted, was to end the anomalous position whereby people or businesses who improve their properties through the installation of micro power technologies may suffer on revaluation an increase in their tax. It strikes me as logically the case that this acts as a disincentive to people and businesses who want to do the right thing. It therefore struck me that this Bill was the right vehicle in which to raise this matter, to test the Government’s thinking on it. I confess I had no great hope of a positive outcome. An unseen hand drafted me a speaking note on this issue, and the fact is that I have conceded that clause 6 will probably not form part of the Bill.

The unseen hand drafted the following:

“This deletion is clearly the idea of counter-revolutionary forces in the civil service. However, who am I to oppose the forces of reaction?”

The Minister, I am afraid, finds herself in the position of the forces of reaction this afternoon.

I do accept that where households are concerned—because revaluations are, thankfully, pretty rare—a relatively small number of people might be affected by this. But there may be consequences for small businesses, particularly where revaluations are rather more common. So I do remain concerned about the principle at stake here: we should not be penalising people who are doing the right thing. For the sake of the rest of the Bill, however, I am reluctantly prepared to ditch clause 6, but not until I have heard the Minister produce a halfway decent, plausible excuse for the Government’s approach to this important matter.

See this speech in context