HC Deb 09 May 1978 vol 949 cc444-5W
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when the next revaluation of property in England and Wales for rating purposes will take place; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Shore

The present valuation list for England and Wales dates from 1973 and is becoming steadily more out of date. Revaluations have been deferred while the Layfield Committee on local government finance was sitting and while we have been considering its report. But it is now time that work was started towards another general revaluation.

In the Green Paper (Cmnd. 6813) which I and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Wales presented to Parliament last summer, we said that we would wish to introduce legislation to provide that domestic property should in future be valued on the basis of capital values rather than the present rental value basis. The Government remain committed to that proposal, which we believe would be the best method for the future because there is so much more open market evidence of capital values than there is of rental values.

Unfortunately, it has now become clear that there would be no majority for capital value legislation in the present Parliament and that we cannot therefore make progress in that direction at present. But I do not believe it would be right to do nothing meanwhile. The Government have decided, therefore, that, pending legislation which will enable us to use capital values, there must be some action taken now.

We propose therefore to institute another revaluation on the present statutory basis of rental values and have accordingly asked the Valuation Office of the Inland Revenue to start work on another revaluation on that basis.

So far as non-domestic property is concerned there is adequate evidence available about free market rental values on which to base the new list, and the revaluation will remove the various anomalies that are developing in the present list. On the domestic side the evidence of free market rental values is now very limited, as we pointed out in the Green Paper. The Inland Revenue has agreed, however, that although a revaluation of dwellings will be difficult because of the limited amount of free market evidence it will be feasible, and we believe that it will be very much better than soldiering on with the present list, with its growing anomalies and inequities between one ratepayer and another.

The Inland Revenue expects to complete the new valuation list in about four years. I am accordingly today laying two orders to defer the date on which the new list comes into effect from 1st April 1980—which is the date currently prescribed by statute—to 1st April 1982. These orders are subject to affirmative resolution in both Houses.