Austin Mitchell

I am grateful. My hon. Friend says that it would be unfair if retrospective rates were not levied. To whom would it be unfair? A whole new class of businesses, the port operators, is being brought into the business rate separate assessment system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Shona McIsaac) has pointed out, they were already paying business rates through the cumulo system, and now they are going to be rateable under a different system. That should have been done in 2005, and the VOA says that it was. Why were the valuations reassessed in 2008 and made retrospective? To whom would not doing so be unfair?

— from debate entitled “Clause 29 — Regulations etc.”

The three speeches/headings immediately before

  1. 1 earlier: Sarah McCarthy-Fry

    One more time.

  2. 2 earlier: Austin Mitchell

    Will my hon. Friend give way?

  3. 3 earlier: Sarah McCarthy-Fry

    Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

    On Lords amendments 11 and 12, I commend the quality of the debate in the other place. Forceful arguments were made as to why backdated rating list changes should not apply in relation to BRS liability. Lord Bates set out his view that the amendments

    "are designed to provide an important guarantee to avoid retrospection in business rate supplements taxation".—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 9 June 2009; Vol. 711, c. 550.]

    He felt strongly about that matter. The noble Lords Tope, Williamson and Brooke and Earl Attlee and Earl Cathcart all spoke eloquently and persuasively in his support. However, I reiterate that the Bill relates to the BRS. For the reasons that I have already mentioned, which were set out by Lord Davies in another place, I do not agree with the principle of the guarantee described by Lord Bates.

    It is right and fair that the system that applies to rating should apply to the BRS. Maintaining an accurate rating list necessarily involves an element of backdating, as properties must be valued when they are complete or nearly complete to ensure proper valuation. We cannot have a system in which a person avoids paying rates or the BRS for a time, whereas someone else in analogous circumstances cannot, because of the coincidence of when a valuation can be undertaken in practice. That would be unfair and irresponsible, so it is right that changes to rating lists take effect from the date of the event giving rise to the change. The provisions in the Bill were crafted to be entirely consistent with the national business rate system. That ensures that liability to business rate supplements will be fair to all.

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