HC Deb 30 January 1929 vol 224 cc1053-5

(1) As from the appointed day a reduction or increase in the value of any hereditament in the county of London occasioned in the course of any year by that hereditament having become or ceased to be an agricultural, industrial, or freight transport hereditament shall, for the purposes of Section forty-seven of the Valuation (Metropolis) Act, 1869, be a ground for making and sending to the assessment committee a provisional list and for making a requisition for such a list to be made and sent, and in relation to any provisional list or requisitionmade on such ground as aforesaid that Act shall apply accordingly, subject to the following modifications, that is to say: —

  1. (a) a provisional list or requisition therefor made on the ground that a hereditament has become an agricultural, industrial, or freight transport hereditament shall contain such particulars as may be prescribed; and
  2. (b) a provisional list shall not be made on the ground that a hereditament has become an agricultural, industrial, or freight transport hereditament unless a requisition therefor has been made by the owner or occupier of the hereditament.

(2) As from the appointed day, no proposal lor the amendment of a valuation list on the ground that a hereditament ought to be shown therein as an industrial or freight transport hereditament or ought to be omitted therefrom (or while the first new valuation list is in force shown therein) as being an agricultural hereditament shall be made under Section thirty-seven of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, by any person except the owner or occupier of the hereditament, and every such proposal shall contain such particulars as may be prescribed.

(3) Sub-section (10) of Section thirty-seven of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925 (which determines the date as from which amendments in valuation lists made under that Section are to have effect), shall be amended by the addition thereto of the following proviso, that is to say:—

Provided also that in the case of an amendment made on or after the first day of October, nineteen hundred and twenty-nine, by reason of any hereditament having become or ceased to be an agricultural, industrial, or freight transport hereditament, the amendment shall have effect only as from the date when the hereditament became or ceased to be such a hereditament.

(4) Notwithstanding anything in the Rating and Valuation (Apportionment) Act, 1928, no hereditament shall, for the purposes of any valuation list which will come into force after the appointed day, be treated as an agricultural hereditament, industrial hereditament, or freight transport hereditament unless it was so treated for the purposes of the last preceding valuation list except upon a claim that it ought to be so treated being made to the rating authority by the owner or occupier of the hereditament in the prescribed form which shall be supplied by the rating authority on the demand of the owner or occupier of any hereditament in their area.—[The Attorney-General.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

This Clause, together with the one that immediately follows it, is intended to replace Clause 56, which was left out of the Bill, and to give effect to an undertaking to the effect that, in calculating losses on account of rates for purposes of the grant, allowance will be made for all properties entitled to relief on 1st October, 1929. Clause 56 was omitted because local authorities were anxious about the rate at which claims for altering the list were coming in, and they. were anxious lest it should be found that the list would not be completed by 1st October. Therefore, that Clause having been omitted, this Clause and the next, together with an Amendment to Schedule 9, are intended to give effect to the Minister's undertaking. The London and the provincial practices are different. In London it is not provided that there shall be any alteration of quinquennial lists except on certain conditions. In the provinces on the other hand, an alteration in the Valuation List may be applied for at any time, and there are different provisions in the two codes as to the time from which an alteration in the list takes effect. The first Sub-section of this Clause deals with London and the second and third with the provinces, and the fourth provides that the application of the ratepayer is to be a condition of obtaining the relief given by the Act of Parliament. The object of the Clauses, of course, is to provide that the calculation of the new block grant shall be facilitated in accord- ance with the condition of things on 1st October, 1929, and therefore the Clause says that an alteration in the Valuation List, though effected after 1st October, 1929, shall date back to that date.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.