§ 4.26 p.m.
§ The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk)My Lords, I beg to 300 move that this Bill be read a second time. It has often occurred to me that perhaps we should be able to assess Bills in the same way, or grade them in the same way, as we do wines and refer to some Bills as witty little Bills or vintage Bills or heavy Bills or light Bills. I would say that this is a short but sensible Bill. It is a short Bill with only one purpose; namely, to amend the law concerning the valuation and rating of leisure caravans and caravan sites. It provides that, in future, sites and individual caravans with their pitches can be valued and rated as a single unit. This means, in effect, that rates will be collected only from the site operator, instead of from him and all the individual caravanners as well.
For rating purposes there are three categories of caravans. First, there are permanent residential caravans, which are those caravans used as a permanent home. These are separately rated at present and will continue to be separately rated and so are not affected by the provisions of this Bill. The second category is caravans used for touring. Such caravans will not be permanently sited on any one pitch, and will not, therefore, be rateable and also will not be affected by the provisions of this Bill. Thirdly, there are leisure caravans. These are caravans permanently sited, but which under the terms of the site licence or planning permission can be used only for a portion of the year. They may be used only by the caravan owner, or they may be let to other holidaymakers. It is these leisure caravans with which this Bill is concerned.
Until fairly recently, only the caravan site—which included the pitches—was rated. The caravans themselves were not rated, but the caravan owner paid a share of the rates payable with his rent. However, due to the evolution of case law, permanent residential and leisure caravans and their pitches are now liable to be rated separately. This has not caused any major problems so far as permanent residential caravans are concerned. But when I say that there are now nearly a quarter of a million leisure caravans, noble Lords will appreciate that the separate rating of these has inevitably caused considerable problems for local authorities when collecting rates from the caravanners. The purpose of 301 this Bill, therefore, is to revert to the old situation where the site operators are liable for rates, but to retain the liability of leisure caravans to be rated.
Before I explain how we propose to do this, I think it would be helpful if I explained how the present situation arose. Prior to 1966, the whole caravan site, including the pitches, was rated as one unit, but individual caravans were not included in this assessment since they were considered as chattels and so were not rateable. This applied both to permanent residential caravans and to leisure caravans. Then in 1966, in the case of Field Place Caravan Park Ltd. v.Harding, the Court of Appeal decided that caravans that stay in one place for a period of time which can be regarded as permanent were separately rateable, together with the pitch on which they stand. This covered both residential and leisure caravans, since whether or not a caravan is separately rateable depends not on how it is used, but on whether the occupation is sufficiently permanent to create rateability. And the liability of leisure caravans to be rated has also been upheld in more recent Scottish cases.
Therefore, following the 1966 case—I should explain that although no period was given to what was called at the time "a transient period", it is considered to be not less than a year—all static caravans (permanent, residential and leisure) and their pitches were liable for separate rating with the site owner liable only for rates for the common parts of the site. However, the Valuation Office in the years following 1966 were involved with more mammoth tasks, including preparing for the 1973 general revaluation. They were therefore unable to get down immediately to valuing the multitude of caravans. But in the 1973 revaluation, most permanent residential caravans were dealt with and nearly all now have separate rateable values with their owners paying rates like any other householder.
The task of valuing thousands of leisure caravans was enormous and naturally could only be undertaken slowly. About a year ago it became obvious that the disparity of treatment between those leisure caravans which had been separately assessed and those which had not, could not be allowed to continue much longer. 302 The owners of the caravans which were separately rated were understandably asking why they should be paying rates on their caravans when caravan owners on another site were not. Although all leisure caravans would have been valued eventually, the valuation officers redoubled their efforts this year in order to treat all leisure caravan owners on the same basis.
Now that most leisure caravans have been separately assessed, rating authorities must serve a rate demand on the caravan owners, and this is where the problem nowlies. I do not think that it is necessary for me to explain in detail how difficult it is to identify one caravan among the many hundreds that may be on a site, let alone trace the owner who may visit the site only occasionally and whose permanent addressmay be miles away. In some areas the total number of entries in the valuation list for all rateable properties has increased by as much as 20 per cent. because of the increase in the number of leisure caravans, and in order to collect these rates many local authorities would certainly have to increase their staff if leisure caravans continued to be separately assessed. I do not believe that at the present time this would be popular with any part of the House, or, indeed, any part of the country.
The Bill resolves this by allowing valuation officers to value as one unit a caravan site, together with any leisure caravans and their pitches at present separately rateable. Thus there will be only one rate demand made to the site operator who will then be able torecoup the rates from the owners of the caravans. A side effect of this Bill, which will be of considerable interest to caravan owners, is that the total rateable value of the combined caravans and site will be less than if they were valued separately. In other words, the owners of leisure caravans will in general be paying lower rates than they otherwise would.
The Bill is short, consisting of four clauses, and covers the whole of Great Britain. I do not intend at this stage to take the House through the clauses line by line; we shall have the opportunity later to examine the measure in detail if, as I hope, the Bill receives its Second Reading this afternoon. But it might 303 be helpful if I explained in general terms how the Bill seeks to achieve its object and the main points which are relevant.
Clause 1(1) enables the valuation officer to assess as a single unit ("hereditament" is the term used in England and Wales) a caravan site, the pitches and the caravans on them which are already separately assessed. When this is done the site operator will be the rateable occupier. There are two important points in Clause 1 to which I should draw attention. Clause 1(4) enables this new hereditament to be regarded as a "mixed hereditament "for the purposes of domestic rate relief. This, combined with the lower total of rateable value for the new hereditament, will generally result in a lower total of rates paid than would otherwise be the case.
The other important provision in this clause is in subsection (7),which enables the owner of a caravan, other than the site operator, to make a proposal—to make a proposal is rather stronger than just to ask—for his caravan to be separately assessed. This is to ensure that if, for some exceptional reason,the caravanner would be liable to pay less rates if his caravan were separately assessed than if he had to pay his proportion of the rates on the new combined hereditament, he will not be worse off as a result of the Bill. Clause 1 relates to England and Wales only. These two points are dealt with slightly differently in the Scottish clause, Clause 2. Clause 1(8) ensures that the provision in the clause will apply to drainage rates as well as to general rates.
I ought also to mention something that the Billdoes not and could not do. It does not change the situation in the current rating year. The collection of rates from individual caravanners must remain for this year. Because of the time factor, I think that this will be clearly understood. Many caravanners have already paid their rates and it would be unfair to them to change the system now. It would also create immense problems for local authorities and valuation officers.
My Lords, I think that in commending this Bill to you I should remind the House that when the Local Government (Scotland) Bill was before you last Session, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, moved a new clause that was 304 designed to do broadly what the present Bill will do. Examination of the noble Lord's clause—indeed, atthe time the noble Lord said that he considered it to be a probing clause—revealed certain defects and it was, by leave, withdrawn. The debate on it was useful because it showed the pitfalls we had to avoid, and the consideration which followed persuaded us that we need not, after all, await the views of the Layfield Committee. We have found, we believe, a solution, useful even in the short term, and one which will not tie the hands of the Committee. We shall be at a great loss when Layfield reports, because we will be unable to keep on saying, "We are waiting for Layfield "!
I am sure it has not escaped your Lordships' notice that of the four pages of this Bill only half a page is common to Scotland as well as to England and Wales. This may appear curious in a Bill intended to produce similar results North and South of the Border. The reason is that there are quite separate valuation and rating codes, and in Scotland the common objective must be reached by a slightly different route. That explains both the similarities and the differences between Clauses 1 and 2, although, broadly speaking, the objectives attained will be the same both North and South of the Border.
My Lords, the Government are very well aware of the problems which the recent large increases in rates have caused. We understand the anxieties of ratepayers, which is why we increased the rate support grant for this year to unprecedented levels in order to keep rates at a reasonable level. This relatively small Bill is of great importancebecause it will ensure that caravanners will be paying lower rates than they otherwise would. It will also prevent a significant increase in local authority expenditure in certain holiday areas, which there would certainly be if leisure caravans continued to be rated separately. For that reason alone, this Bill is to be highly commended.
It has been suggested that in addition to making it easier for the local authorities to collect rates, we should return to the situation in which caravans were not rateable, and rates were payable only on the site and the pitches. I think that is turning the clock back too far. In our 305 view, such a move would be unfair. It would throw an even greater rate burden on the other ratepayers in areas where there are large numbers of leisure caravans. We believe the Court of Appeal correctly reflected the view that owners of leisure caravans are in a similar position to the owners of other second homes and should, like them, make a proper contribution to the expenses of the local authority within whose area their caravan is situated.
The net result of this measure is that the cost of collecting rates will be reduced to the benefit of local authorities and ratepayers; it will be simplified—it will be easier—and anything that reduces the costs of collection and therefore reduces both local and public expenditure must be a good thing and should, I should have thought, be very welcome. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (Baroness Birk.)
§ 4.40 p.m.
§ Lord ELTONMy Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, referred to this small Bill as "a bottle of wine"—a half bottle, I think. I would say that it is an interesting little Bill with a hint of subtlety but a slightly dubious after-taste, although I think my noble friend Lord Wakefield of Kendal tends to the view that it is corked.
We are appreciative of the enormous administrative problems posed by the law as it at present stands, subsequent to the effect upon case law of the Layfield Committee. Therefore it is quite clear that this situation should be improved and we regard the Bill as a worthy attempt in the right direction. It is traditional at Second Reading to put down markers for what one intends to do at the Committee stage, and therefore while I shall try not to weary your Lordships for longer than the noble Baroness, I must refer to certain detailed aspects of the Bill. Before I come to them I would say that, unlike the noble Baroness, I somewhat regret that the Lay-field Committee Report was not waited for. I understand from the words uttered by the Secretary of State in another place yesterday that the reception of the Report is a matter now of a few weeks, and therefore it seems to me that it might have been possible either to expedite the 306 delivery of the Report or slightly to delay the tabling of this Bill.
Be that as it may, let us look at the Bill on its merits. We find that there are a number of matters which give us some cause for alarm and which it might be helpful for us to indicate to the Govment now so that they may prepare their case for the Committee stage. For instance, in Clause 1(4) it seems to me that the effect of the provisions of the Bill for the exclusion of Section 19(2) of the General Rate Act 1967 would be that valuation officers would have to rely exclusively upon valuation direct to rateable value. This is a technical matter, but it is in fact to act on the assumption that the site operators maintain and insure all the caravans on all the sites. As I am informed that this is rarely the case outside Cornwall, in the preponderance of cases outside Cornwall it follows that most valuations will be made upon a false and invalid set of assumptions and must give rise to numerouscostly disputes. Perhaps the noble Baroness will he able to advance a reason for this particular aspect of the Bill at a later stage.
In more general terms, it seems to us that an entirely new principle is introduced into the rating system, where the site operator is made responsible for not merely the collection but the payment of rates on facilities which he does not himself specifically and personally enjoy. The noble Baroness has herself referred to the sheer impossibility in some cases of locating the owner-occupier of a caravan when that effort to locate is being made by a local authority. I put it to her that it is not likely to be a great deal easier for the site operator, and it follows either that the site operator is going to be liable to pay a rate which he has been unable to collect or else that there should be some indemnification for him in such circumstances. The noble Baroness shakes her head in a manner which is reassuring, and I am sure she will return to this subject at the end of the debate.
Since it is agreed that the site operator is acting in a sense as a collector of rates, it is natural that he should expect some recognition of his performance of this function. I understand that in a number of cases agreement has already been delayed between site operators and local authorities when the site operator discharges his function and that the going rate, as one might put it, is around 15 307 per cent. I am open to correction on the figure; I would welcome a confirmation of the principle.
The noble Baroness reassured us greatly when she said that there was no question of a retrospective element in this Bill. However, she neglected to give a date for the commencement of the Bill when it becomes an Act. I take it that the date will in fact be the 1st April 1976, but I think that ought to appear somewhere in the Bill as it stands before us, or at least in the record as it is printed in Hansard. At an earlier meeting between her colleague in another place and interested parties, it was stated that a site operator should know in advance what the liability would be on him as to the collection of rates. In other words, it will not be sufficient to make this the law from 1st April 1976 and to leave a blank cheque in the "in "tray for the unfortunate site operator to sign when the due date falls. We should like to be reassured that it would be possible for the valuation officers to arrive at an agreed figure in time for the date upon which the Bill becomes law.
I think there may be a hint of precipitancy in the Bill, because there is no apparent requirement for the valuation officer at any stage to consult with the site operator when he is making his valuation or when he is exercising the discretion which is given to him in Clause 1(1) as to whether infact the hereditament should be treated as a whole or under the system where caravans continue to be individually rated. This discretion is in itself a little puzzling in view of the fact that the noble Baroness said that individual rating was in some respects unfair.
In Clause 1(7) I think we have a potentially disorganised and difficult situation, because the individual owner-occupier of a caravan is given the option of claiming his right to be rated individually. It seems to me that this could, if widely exercised, negate the entire purpose of the Bill. I would welcome observations on this from the noble Baroness, but supposing on one site there are 10 out of 100 caravans where the owner-occupiers opt for the individual treatment; on a site of 1,000 you might have another 10 or you might have 150 or 2,000. Each change in the balance 308 between individually rated and collectively rated caravans would of course necessitate a review of the valuation of the remaining proportion which has not so opted. Furthermore, there is the possibility that where there is a mixed hereditament, by virtue of the proportion of caravans in occupation to amenities, such as club houses, where a large number of the individual caravan owners opted to be individually treated, then presumably the remaining caravan owners who had not so opted would be lumped together in a diminishing balance against the club house and amenities.
As I read the Bill as it now stands—and I am open to correction at Committee stage—there would be the possibility of a mixed hereditament being rated commercially as a result of the change of this balance. I should like the noble Baroness also to consider in passing the advisability of amending Section 56 of the Water Act 1945 to accord with the General Rates Act 1967 at this juncture, because it would have the effect of standardising the times of collection of these rates and would lead to great administrative convenience.
Finally, I will turn briefly to Scotland. The noble Baroness has anticipated my reference to the contribution of the noble Lord. Lord Campbell of Croy. My noble friend cannot be here at present, but I believe he will be able to assist us at Committee stage. For those of your Lordships who wish to look up the noble Lord's remarks on the Amendments to which the noble Baroness alluded, they are to be found in column 23 of Hansard of 8th April 1975.
However, I should like to draw to the attention of your Lordships one further little pitfall which I detect in the path of the noble Baroness; that is, that as the Bill stands at present, the site operator in Scotland will be required to issue a no-change certificate relating to caravans to which he has no official access. Obviously, either he will be in default of his duty to issue a certificate that the caravan is the same as in the previous year or he will be in default by reason of making a statement which he cannot know to be true. My Lords, I trust I have not wearied your Lordships by going into some detail. It may be beneficial in expediting the Committee stage. and with that tepid commendation, I 309 leave the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield of Kendal, to give his pronouncement on the tasting of this half bottle.
§ 4.51 p.m.
§ Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDALMy Lords, the Government have stated that the enemy we have to beat is inflation and unemployment. All are agreed that the way to do this is to reduce central Government and local authority expenditure, reduce taxation, and to increase employment by the encouragement of the creation of wealth by manufacturing industry, in particular if that industry earns foreign exchange by exports. Yet what does this Bill do? So far as I can see, it does precisely the opposite to what the Government say ought to be done. It increases taxation, thereby contributing to inflation. It increases the cost to the consumer, thereby reducing sales of caravans, so creating unemployment, which is increased because of inability to sell caravans abroad due to the higher cost of production as a result of lowered output. That is why I oppose an increase of tax—which, say what you like, this Bill is all about—which will follow from this Bill.
I suggest that if the Government would only use the same effort and ingenuity to reduce Government expenditure as they do to find ways of increasing taxation, we might then see sonic real progress being made towards reducing inflation and stopping the rise in unemployment. I would suggest that it is this failure to act in accordance with what has been said that causes resentment and, indeed, depression throughout the country.
This Bill creates an entirely new principle for rating procedures, as has already been said by my noble friend Lord Elton. The new procedure proposed in this Bill could have very far-reaching effects on everyone who owns or occupies property liable to a rate payment. I do not think it is right or proper that the principles of rating should be changed in this way in a Bill of this kind—slipped through on the quiet, as it were—without a thorough and detailed examination of what is proposed by all those professionally concerned with rating and valuation. There should be a much wider knowledge by the public at large of what is involved in this Bill and the implications 310 and consequences that will arise if the Bill in its present form becomes an Act of Parliament, not just for the owners of caravans and caravans on pitches but for the whole of the property world. For the first time a rateable person will be required to pay rates on something that is not in his occupation. It would single out one type of ratepayer and treat him differently from all other sections of the community.
The proposal is that the ratepayer will be responsible for rates on somebody else's property, with no consequential advantage, and with no means of redress if he is unable to recover the amount of the rate due. Clearly, such a situation is completely unacceptable. It is obvious that this Bill will have to be amended at Committee stage to rectify this unfair and quite unjust state of affairs. The reasons advanced for the introduction of this Bill have been very clearly set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, speaking on behalf of the Government. But I must again emphasise that increasing taxation by the rating of caravans in this way is inexcusable as long as it is realised that, by so doing, the fires of inflation are being fanned and unemployment created. Here I must declare an interest. I am a director of a company which owns and operates caravan sites. The chaos created by the crude attempts to rate individual caravans defies description. The noble Baroness was quite right when she spoke of the difficulties that the local rating authorities had, but much of it was their own fault.
I know of a caravan site which is closed from 31st October to 3rd March. There are certain restrictions in the site licence about the siting of caravans during the winter months. In consequence, caravans are moved from pitches and areas for central storage. Caravans from other sites are also stored at this place during the winter months. For many years now, towards the end of February and in early March, there is intense activity as the caravans are moved from this place to another site, or from pitch to pitch, sometimes quite temporarily, for convenience on this same site. It was just at this moment that the rating and valuation officers decided to arrive on the scene to measure up caravans. But, of course, as soon as a caravan was measured up, as likely as not in a few 311 hours it had disappeared and gone elsewhere, either away from the site altogether or perhaps temporarily to another pitch, or indeed it might have been exchanged for a new caravan. Moreover, some caravans were measured twice on different pitches; others were not measured at all.
The site is licensed for 250 caravan pitches, of which 40 are required to be reserved for touring caravans. As the noble Baroness said, touring caravans are not due for rating. In consequence, on the site only 210 caravans should have been measured, but the officials concerned were determined to find 250. They got fairly near the mark at 247, but in so far as I am aware no rates have been collected because of appeals, and no one knows which caravan belongs to whom as the pitches are not numbered and the caravans are situated in areas along with boats, trailers and cars. Therefore, it is obvious that something had to be done.
My Lords, I do not understand why it has not been possible in England to do what has been done in Scotland, where for some time not only residential caravans but leisure or recreational caravans occupied for only part of the year have been rated individually. Reference has already been made in this debate to Scotland and the different situation there. In Scotland, the principles of individual rating have not been disturbed. Satisfactory methods and agreements have been worked out in such a way as to avoid burdening the local authorities with heavy administration costs. This has been done by arranging for the site owners to carry out the collecting, appropriately rewarded, as my noble friend Lord Elton has already said, for doing the job, without having to bear the financial responsibility for the rates due.
There would be no need at all for this Bill if the local rating authorities in England had approached the problem in the same sensible way as was done in Scotland. Under the existing law they could have resorted to other solutions, as was done in Scotland. In such circumstances would not the Government be well advised to withdraw this Bill and give guidance to local authorities on how to collect the rates easily and cheaply, as has been done in Scotland, thereby avoiding interfering with long-established 312 rating principles? Let us wait for the Report before we interfere with those rating principles.
The method now proposed in this Bill lays down the principle of making the accommodation provided by the caravan rateable, but, as the noble Baroness has said, the liability for the payment of those rates rests with the site owner and not with the owner of the caravan. Surely this must be utterly wrong. Would not the Government agree that, in the changed circumstances, and with the proposed new responsibilities placed upon him, to allow this Bill to become an Act of Parliament without the site owner being given adequate protection, would be a denial of natural justice and quite alien to the British sense of justice and of fair play? Clearly this situation calls for remedial action and amendment during the Committee stage of the Bill.
There is a further matter which will need discussion in detail during the Committee stage. This again has already been referred to but I should like to underline it because it is important: it is the date when this Bill is due to come into operation. If this proposed legislation were to come into force before 1st April 1976, it would mean that the site owner could be made liable for rates on the whole site, together with the individual caravans owned and occupied by others, as far back as 1st April last year, even though some caravan owners may have disposed of their caravans or taken them elsewhere. There are, in addition, a number of other difficulties which will arise which are better dealt with at Committee stage rather than on Second Reading. To take just one example, in Clause 1(1) the valuation officer is able to make a new proposal at any time and this could be towards the end of a rating year. This could cause obvious difficulties. There ought to be some time limit on such an option.
There is yet another blow in prospect, because under Clause 1(4) the blanket assessment will be subject to the higher commercial rate, instead of the domestic rate as now applied to individual rating. Again the noble Baroness has touched upon this. It is a highly technical matter, and again one cannot go into it in detail on Second Reading, but for clarification it will have to be discussed at considerable length at Committee stage.
313 In conclusion, may I appeal to the Government to adopt the procedure under Sections 55 and 56 of the General Rate Act 1967 instead of this Bill. The principle of individual rating of caravans could be maintained cheaply, and indeed easily administered, by appointing the site owner as a collector on behalf of the rating authorities, with appropriate safeguards against the non-payer, but with suitable remuneration. Why not adopt such a procedure, instead of taking up valuable Parliamentary time with yet another Bill, creating more and unnecessary problems, and establishing far-reaching new and unexamined principles of rating? My Lords, will not the Government think again?
§ 5.5 p.m.
§ Baroness BIRKMy Lords, I have listened with great and very careful interest to what has been said by the two noble Lords opposite, and also, I must confess, with some surprise. I am really quite amazed at the very strong criticism—"animosity is too strong a word, because all points were made most courteously—of what I thought would have been accepted as an extremely good measure and very much more economical than anything else. All I can say is that the fact that there have been only two noble Lords who have spoken in opposition to the Bill probably means that, so far as the rest of the House are concerned, they are passively supporting it.
§ Lord WAKEFIELD of KENDALMy Lords, if the noble Baroness will forgive me, the First Reading was only just before the Christmas Recess. There was then the Christmas and New Year holiday. There has been very little chance for noble Lords or anybody else to read the Bill and understand the significance of it.
§ Baroness BIRKMy Lords, I take the point as regards the details of the Bill—the various committee points which will arise—but the noble Lord must know, as I do, that it was known to people who took the trouble to be interested (as he obviously has, and he very fairly declared his interest) that this Bill was pending and what was the basic principle of it. Indeed, as I understood it, the noble Lord was arguing against the principle as well as the details.I had thought in advance that the point on which we would have 314 the only major controversy was the spelling of the word "caravanner". There is some controversy as to whether it should be spelled with two "n"s or one "n"; we came to the conclusion that it was optional, and so we followed the Oxford English Dictionary with two "n"s. But in fact it is quite clear that there are other very controversial points.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was less than fair in following what obviously turned out to be a rather unfortunate analogy when I started on the question of wine; he called it tepid. I can imagine exactly what would have been the comments of noble Lords opposite if I had brought forward a Bill which supported the idea and in detail worked out separate rating. The cries of local government expenditure, increase of staff, would have been reverberating everywhere; we would have received great criticism. When I come forward with a Bill which makes for ease of operation, managerial efficiency and which reduces the amount of rates to the individual, all we get arc some extremely sour comments.
I shall try to deal with some of the main points raised, but, as both noble Lords pointed out, some were detailed committee points and they will forgive me if I do not cover them all. Upon looking through Hansard, if I find that there are points on which I should write to them in order to avoid things being raised unnecessarily at Committe stage, I will do so. I think one of the main points made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was about how the site operators will get their money hack. In a sort of oblique way this whole area was raised and discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield. They have always collected the rent, and before 1966 there was always arate ingredient in the rent they collected. They always had, even before then, to collect the rates for the sites themselves and for the pitches, so all one is doing is rationalising this matter and putting it together.
I must inform the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that he is incorrect when he says how difficult it will be for them to collect. On the contrary, the comments that I have heard from caravanners themselves have been about the very hard terms—and one has to look at this from both sides of the caravan pitch—that have to be 315 agreed,and the time in advance in which they have to pay. I quite appreciate the way in which, quite understandably from the site owner's point of view, the noble Lord covers this very point. For the moment I am trying to develop the various points which interlock with this one. I am talking here about the point with which we arc concerned, which is the question of the site owner being able to collect the rate ingredient, and also whether or not it is fair for him to do so. I would say that there would be no difficulty in doing that because he will get his money back when the rent is already settled. In fact, there are questions that could be raised on the other side as to whether caravanners might feel that there is enough security for them in this sort of arrangement because, as I am sure both noble Lords know, caravanners have never been able to go to rent tribunals in the same way as other residential occupants have been able to in the past, and then will not be able to do so under this Bill.
The site owner has a great deal on his side, and I should have thought he has not a great deal to be concerned about as the collection is included in the rent, and the assessment can be changed from year to year. There will be discussions with the valuation officer and, as I pointed out when I introduced the Bill, it will not be retrospective. That should answer the point the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield of Kendal, raised over retrospection. So although we hope the Bill will come in on 1st April 1976 there is not yet a fixed date. As noble Lords will appreciate, this Bill has been introduced in this House. We have to take the stages here, and then it goes to another place. For this reason, because we could not get it in before the rating this year was being settled, I made it quite clear that it would be quite unfair to do this.
When the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield. points to all the complexities, I feel that what he is really stating are arguments in favour of the Bill, which simplifies so many of the points he has raised. I find it quite ludicrous to say that this Bill results in an increase in tax. In a situation where rates will be lower as a result of a measure, one can hardly call that inflationary. At the same time, the noble Lord makes the suggestion that the site 316 owner should be paid for collecting money. Well. that is a most inflationary suggestion at this particular time, and one that comes ill from members of a Party who are always talking about counter-inflation measures which the Government should be bringing in and should try to put into operation.
Site owners are getting the benefit of the local authority and other services on the sites and on the pitches, apart from the individual caravans. All that this Bill is doing is to say that included in the rent you are collecting anyway you include an ingredient to cover the rates. You are collecting the rates in any case for the pitches and sites, so all that it is added are the rates for the caravans. This is not any revolutionary or new proposition. All that is happening is that if the leisure caravans are being included and considered to be in the category of second homes, which seems to be an equitable situation, the increase in the rates to the site owner will be carried through in the rent. This will be by agreement, as it has been in the past, between the caravanners and the site owners. All the evidence I have been shown indicates that site owners are very careful to cover themselves in almost every sort of contingency, in many cases even to the extent of contracts by which, if the owner wants to sell the caravan, he has to do it through the owner of the site, and also has to make a contract for a certain number of years. This is a matter between the site owner and the caravanner. I am not making any judgment on it, but I am quoting these examples to show that there is security for the site owner in that way.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, raised the question of the discretion of the valuation officer. It is perfectly true that we do not expect that there will be many cases where a discretion needs to be used, but there could be an exceptional case. We are at the moment awaiting the results of a case in the courts where somebody is disabled. It could well be that in that case a separate assessment would be in the interest of the caravan-owner himself. Therefore, he could make a proposal.
§ Lord ELTONMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way I because I am slightly confused by what 317 she has said. She said, I think, that the valuation officer would not often exercise his discretion. But the valuation officer's discretion lies in Clause 1(1) where he may, if he thinks, treat all or any of the pitches as single hereditaments. I think I may be confused. The noble Baroness will enlighten me. She is saying that he will exercise a discretion towards individual caravans within a site to treat them individually and not, as I had perhaps wrongly supposed, that he would have a discretion to treat the whole site either as one hereditament or as a collection of individual hereditaments.
§ Baroness BIRKMy Lords, the noble Lord is right. What I was doing was bringing together two different points. There is the discretion in England and Wales as to whether he treats the whole site as a single hereditament, and on that point the discretion is almost like a long-stop. We cannot think of any example where it might occur, but it is felt that this option should be left open in case it should occur.
The other point where a proposal can be made is where a particular caravan—I give the example here, and this is the example we envisage as the most likely—belongs to someone who is disabled, where in that case the disabled person would be rated lower if he had a separate assessment than if the assessment would be for the whole site. If this is the case, depending on whether there is a considerable number of people in that category, then of course the valuation for the whole site would be adjusted between the site owner and the valuation officer. I apologise, but these are complicated points.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, also raised the question of the Layfield Committee Report. It is impossible to expedite it any more. It is an immense piece of work, as the noble Lord appreciates, and the Committee are going as fast as they can. To postpone the Bill would, we feel, be quite wrong because it would make it even more difficult to have it in force for this holiday season. It would extend the discrepancy between those who had been and those who had not been assessed, and we feel that justice is better done in this way.
318 The noble Lord, Lord Elton, also raised the question of discount for site operators. There is no general right of discount, because the site operator is the ratepayer on the combined hereditament, but where the rating authority offers a discount for prompt payment to all ratepayers, the operator would be entitled to it on exactly the same conditions. One hopes—it would, of course, be up to him—that he would pass on the benefit to the caravan owners. I think it would be rather difficult for me to convince the noble Lord, Lord Wakefield, that this is a good as opposed to a bad Bill, though perhaps as we go through the measure in Committee he will find in it the benefits and some of the good points which I assure him are there but which do not seem to have revealed themselves to him today, or perhaps I have not revealed them in the right way. However, I hope that as time goes on he will be persuaded into accepting that this is an economic, good and equitable measure.
The question of people moving caravans was raised. One of the problems of identification, to which reference has been made, is that caravans have anyway to be identified for rent purposes, and certainly one thing that it is difficult to do with a caravan, especially a large one, is a moonlight flit. As for people moving caravans from one pitch to another, noble Lords will be aware that this is an extremely difficult thing to do and, on the whole, people do not do this on a regular basis because of the problems involved. Upon moving they have to make a new contract with a new site operator and, in any event, if people were to take such a step often enough they would take themselves out of the class of leisure caravans into the class of touring caravans, and that would not be to their advantage.
I think that most of the other points that were raised would be best dealt with in Committee. The point that was made in regard to net annual value for valuation purposes is a technical one and I would prefer to leave it until the Committee stage. In conclusion, I must repeat what I said at the beginning; that is, that this is a sensible measure which will reduce the cost of collecting rates, which are themselves a form of tax, with the 319 reduction in cost being passed on to the taxpayer, and not the other way round. I therefore beg to move.
§ Lord ELTONMy Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, may I ask whether she will consider the advisability of amending Section 56 of the Water Act 1945? I feel that this would be much easier for her to do than it would be for us. I hope the noble Baroness took note of that point.
§ Baroness BIRKI noted it, my Lords, and we will consider it, but at the moment I must admit to not being certain what the noble Lord was talking about. Having noted it, I then nodded my head wisely, hoping that the noble Lord would leave it there, but I will either write to him on the subject or, if we consider it is something that would be valuable to be dealt with in Committee, we will do so. Although I was rather disappointed at the general response of both noble Lords opposite who spoke about the Bill, I assure them that we have carefully noted their remarks, and when tomorrow I read the report of what they said in HansardI will look into the individual points they made, many of which I am aware I have not dealt with. I am sure that they are points which it is valuable for us to be aware of and, if any of them comprise points about which it would be valuable to amend the Bill, they will be taken strongly into consideration.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDEMy Lords, am I not allowed to put a question to the noble Baroness before she resumes her seat?
§ Baroness BIRKPlease do.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDEMy Lords, I am obliged to the noble Baroness. May I ask, as an outsider, why she did not go into the difference between the Scottish and English systems, a point strongly put forward by my noble friend Lord Wakefield? This is a matter of great interest to people who are not knowledgeable about these matters.
§ Baroness BIRKMy Lords, obviously I made a mistake when I so generously invited the noble Baroness to ask her question. The Scottish and English rating systems are completely different and this is the reason for the difference in approach; the assessors are different and the whole basis of assessment is different, and I do not think that at this stage I should go into that matter any further. If the noble Baroness will look at the Bill, she will see that some of it is quite self-explanatory.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.