6. Mr Butler asked the Minister of Finance to outline the rationale for not consulting on the draft non-domestic rates (coronavirus) valuation Bill. (AQO 2744/17-22)

Support for the Bill and the accelerated passage process were agreed by the Executive on 21 October. This is not ordinary legislation; it is an emergency measure that is being introduced purely to mitigate significant fiscal risk. Failure to bring the legislation through could result in revenue losses of up to £255 million for the Executive and district councils over a three-year period from April 2020 to March 2023.

The Department has taken legal advice on its obligations to consult. For this Bill, which addresses an urgent taxation matter, there is neither a statutory obligation nor a legitimate expectation to consult.

Additionally, a consultation should not be undertaken if it is not going to be meaningful. In this case, there is no outcome of a consultation on the Bill that could change the need for the legislation or its intent or nature. I can confirm, however, that equivalent legislation in England, Wales and Scotland has been introduced without consultation.

I thank the Minister for his answer. I am sure that he will agree with me that some non-domestic ratepayers will be concerned, as will other stakeholders. What confidence can you give to significant stakeholders and, in particular, local councils that fiscal pressures will not be forced on them as a result of any outcomes of the Bill?

The precise point of the Bill is to make sure that we deal with potential fiscal pressures. It is a device that was intended to deal with some specific local issues. It can now be used in a global pandemic, although that was never its intention, so we are moving very specifically in that regard to protect the public purse from any loss.

We are in discussion with council finance officers, and I intend to have discussions with business organisations in the very near future. Our ability to consult anyone was dependent on the Executive's approval for the Bill to be taken forward, which was granted only a few short weeks ago. We have no intention of absorbing the cost. There would therefore be no intention of passing that cost on to local government.

I call Robbie Butler for a supplementary question. Apologies. You have already had your supplementary. I am being very generous this afternoon.

[Laughter.]

My understanding is that over 2,000 businesses have appealed their NAV on the basis of coronavirus being an issue. If the Bill passes, what will happen to those 2,000 businesses?

Such legislation originated in Westminster, and, as I said, legislation of a very similar fashion to the Bill that we have adopted is going through in Wales and in Scotland. We hope that, associated with the Bill, there will be some compensatory factor available to us that will come across as a Barnett consequential. If that is the case — we certainly hope that it is the case, and we are testing that at the moment with Treasury — we will try to ensure that businesses get some recompense for that. The consequence of not doing anything, however, would be a much greater cost to the public purse, which would ultimately impact on our ability to move on things such as looking at business rates and some of the rates interventions that we could make on small business support and manufacturing support. That type of hit to the public purse would probably have more negative and longer-term consequences for rates for those businesses.

Many businesses benefited from the two-year rates holiday as part of the package of support for them during the pandemic. Does the Minister expect that there will be further rates support in the incoming financial year?

The rates support that was provided was largely from COVID money that we received from Treasury, so we do not have that level of money going into the next financial year. Nonetheless, we have asked the Ulster University Economic Policy Centre, which provided us with some advice, guidance and supporting evidence on how we tailored the rates package after the initial four months, to give us some further advice on which specific sectors are continuing to suffer as a consequence of the pandemic.

A lot of the retail sector and the hospitality sector has been opened up, albeit with ongoing restrictions in place, but some sectors are suffering as a consequence. We are looking at which sectors are continuing to feel the weight of the impacts of COVID to see whether there is anything that we can do to support them in the new financial year, but that will very much depend on the budgets that are available to us.

The Minister describes this as "not ordinary legislation". He is certainly right about that, because it combines, in a most toxic mix, that which is retrospective with having absolutely no consultation. The Minister then wants to add to that a third component: accelerated passage. He wants to bring to the House legislation that is retrospective, that denies appeals and that has involved no consultation with the sector, and he wants to ram it through the House. Is that not a triple lock of unaccountability?

I think that it is absolutely prudent that, if we recognise that there is a significant risk to the public purse, we take steps to address that. If we did not, I have no doubt that the Member would be very vocal in his criticism of inaction.

It is not ordinary legislation. I do not like the idea of using accelerated passage. Now that we have Executive approval to go ahead, I intend to consult business sectors and others to make sure that people understand what we are doing. I think, however, that even the Member understands that the legislation that exists that allows this was not designed for a global pandemic but for specific local instances in which people lost the value of their property. As I said, it is clearly not what the legislation was designed for.

We have a responsibility to try to protect the public purse, in light of all the conversations that we have had for the past half hour about the pressures on public services.

That ends the period for listed questions. We will now move on to 15 minutes of topical questions.