§ MR. MILBANKasked the President of the Local Government Board, How the sporting right is to be assessed under the new Act when a landlord lets his land but retains the shooting and preserves it? Is it to be valued on the principle of what the tenant would give for the shooting, assuming it to be in an unpreserved state, or is it to be valued upon what it would be let for in a preserved state; in which latter case is the cost of such preservation to be deducted from the assessment?
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTHIt is, of course, Sir, impossible for me to say what the decision of the Courts may be, but it certainly was intended that the Assessment Committee should value the right of sporting in connection with the occupation of the soil, on the principle of "what the tenant would give for the right without reference to preservation." 1827 If an additional value is proposed to be put upon a right of sporting by reason of the preservation of game, it would seem to follow, on the analogy of the general law of rating, that the cost of such preservation might be deducted. It is obvious that important questions as regards preservation arise incidentally where, by reason of such preservation, the full letting value of the land is depreciated.
§ SIR GEORGE JENKINSONasked the President of the Local Government Board, If he will state the principle upon which assessment committees are supposed or intended to rate the right of sporting over grass dairy land, on which there is not any game, and which land is let to tenants at its full agricultural value; and, whether it is in conformity with the intentions of the Act that the same class of grass land in different parishes, but within the same union, should be rated capriciously at little or nothing in one parish, and at a considerable sum per acre in another adjoining parish?
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTHIn reply, Sir, to my hon. Friend I can only say that the sixth section of the Rating Act, 1874, which states that a deduction from rent may be allowed "if rateable value is increased, but not otherwise," clearly contemplates the case of land on which there is not any game, and over which the right of sporting is of no appreciable value. It certainly was not intended that land should be rated capriciously in the manner pointed out by the Question. If any such inequality should exist, the valuation lists may be objected to before the Assessment Committee, or appealed against at the Sessions.