HL Deb 07 March 1989 vol 504 cc1467-8WA
Lord Brougham and Vaux

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What steps they propose to take to ensure the harmonisation of the decapitalisation rates used for rating assessment in Great Britain.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Hesketh)

We propose that, to assist the harmonisation of rating, we should use our powers to prescribe common decapitalisation rates to be used throughout Great Britain in the 1990 revaluation for properties valued by reference to the cost of construction. The evidence suggests that the rate should be set somewhere in the range 6 to 7 per cent., although a lower rate may be justified for certain educational and health care establishments valued on this basis. We shall be issuing a consultation paper shortly.