LIABILITY FOR AND CALCULATION OF COLLECTIVE COMMUNITY CHARGE (Hansard, 4 March 1987)

§ Mr. Lang
I beg to move amendment No. 57, in page 11, line 34, leave out from 'in' to end of line 35 and insert 'the register as having effect in relation to the premises'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 58, 59 and 86.

§ Mr. Lang
The purpose of these amendments is purely technical.
Subsections (7) and (8) of clause 13 relate to the calculation of the total amount payable by way of collective community charge in respect of any premises in respect of any financial year. Subsection (7) provides the basic method of calculation. It says simply that the amount due is the personal community charge times the multiplier. Subsection (8) deals with what happens when the multiplier changes : it provides that in those circumstances the amount due for the year can be calculated at any point in time on the basis that there will be no further changes in the multiplier for the rest of the 997 year. Taken together, the two provisions will enable the local authority to calculate at any moment how much an individual liable for the collective charge is still due to pay, and to issue demand notes accordingly for the remainder of the year. Clause 21(c) deals with the fact that the multiplier specified in the register has having effect is to be conclusive.
The amendments do nothing to change that basic approach. They simply recognise that, under clause 17, amendments to the register can be made with retrospective, immediate or prospective effect, so there is the possibility that the existing terminology used— the multiplier specified in relation to the premises in the register —may not be sufficiently precise. The effect of the amendments is to make it clear that the figure which is to be used in the calculation in respect of any period of time and the figure which is to be conclusive, is the multiplier which has effect in relation to that period of time.

§ Mr. Lang
I beg to move amendment No. 60, in page 12, line 15 after 'situated', insert 'which'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 61.

§ Mr. Lang
These are purely drafting amendments designed to ensure that there is no confusion within subsection (11) of clause 13 about the calculation of the collective community charge contribution.
As the subsection stands, the collective community charge is defined as a portion of the amount of the personal community charge calculated by apportionment on a daily basis according to the number of days for which the individual liable to pay is resident in premises subject to the collective charge. The parliamentary draftsman considers that it is more precise to change the wording so that lines 15 and 16 read, which, calculated by apportionment on a daily basis, accords to the number of days for which he is so resident.". This new terminology makes no difference at all to the policy intention or intended effect of the subsection and the changes are necessary simply to make the drafting more precise. The form of words which would result from these amendments is the same as new subsection (12) of clause 12 inserted by Government amendment No. 54 a little earlier.

§ Mr. Ancram
I beg to move amendment No. 62, in page 12, line 45, at end insert— '(17) A person to whom there has been paid, by way of a collective community charge contribution, any sum which (for whatever reason) is not due shall repay that sum.'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to consider Government amendment No. 138.

§ Mr. Ancram
Concern was expressed in Committee about the possibility that an individual might find himself 998 in double jeopardy as a result of the operation of the collective community charge provisions. The argument, if I can summarise it, ran as follows.
The collective community charge is payable in respect of premises that are used as the sole or main residence by the people who live there but whose residence is so transient that individual registration is not a practical proposition. The amount of the collective community charge is to be based on a multiplier, determined by the registration officer taking into account the number of people who use the premises as their sole or main residence. Views were expressed in Committee that the registration officer might set the multiplier too high, thereby placing pressure on landlords to recover collective community charge contributions from the highest possible proportion of their residents and that that might lead to undue pressure on those residents to pay the contribution even if they were, and continued to be, liable for and paying the personal community charge somewhere else. In practice, we do not think that the registration officer will act unreasonably in that way. We expect there to be a process of negotiation between landlords and registration officers and that if, for example, the landlord can demonstrate that the multiplier was too high in some part of the year there will be room for some give and take to ensure that, broadly speaking, the amount that he is due to pay for the year as a whole comes out about right.
There may be a more real fear that a small number of landlords will routinely seek to recover collective community charge contributions from all their residents, thereby hoping to make a profit. They will be required to keep records and issue receipts, and the residents may well be applying to the local authority for rebates, so it is unlikely that the registration officer will remain in ignorance of the situation for long, and he will then be able to adjust the multiplier.
We accept, however, that where hard cases arise it is important to ensure that individual residents have proper rights of redress and that is why this provision is being written in, following the comments made in Committee. It ensures that an individual who pays a personal community charge contribution to his landlord in circumstances where he was not liable to do so can recover it from the landlord. That point was specifically raised in Committee. Where an individual has difficulty in doing so, he would be able to take the case to the sheriff who will, under the new system, be the avenue of appeals in relation to other community charge matters and will be well placed to deal with such cases.
Amendment No. 138 puts it beyond doubt that, in the more general case where payments have been made by way of community charge but were not, in fact, due, the levying authority should repay the sum in question. Such circumstances could arise, for instance, where a successful appeal had been brought against registration for liability for any of the community charges. Again, some concern was expressed in Committee that the provisions of the Bill as drafted would not in fact allow levying authorities to repay money in those circumstances. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) will remember the representations that were made. These amendments put the matter beyond doubt. They are useful amendments and I hope that the House will accept them.

§ Mr. Maxton
I welcome the amendments because they go some way towards solving the problems that we raised 999 in Committee. We made those problems clear in Committee but they were largely pooh-poohed as being irrelevant, unnecessary and every other word that the Minister could find. He made no suggestion in Committee that he was prepared to consider amendments such as this.

§ Mr. Ancram
That is ungracious.

§ Mr. Maxton
Yes, I am ungracious because that was the Minister's attitude throughout the Committee stage. If he expects me to start being gracious now, he can think again. These are welcome provisions. However, I am not quite sure how individuals will be traced or what obligation there is on an owner to ensure that people are traced and the money repaid. Perhaps we shall have to find that out by due practice.