HC Deb 20 July 1990 vol 176 c770W
Mr. Cohen

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he intends to introduce regulations to remove the need for charge payers to inform community charge registration officers of their new home address or a forwarding address whenever they move to a new charging authority area; and whether he will make a statement.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton

Under the terms of the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act 1987 there is no general duty placed upon community charge payers to inform the community charges registration officer for the area in which they are registered for any of the community charges of their intended address, if they are proposing to move outwith that registration officer's area. There is, of course, a requirement for a charge payer to register at his new address. Under section 18A of the 1987 Act a registration officer may require information of a person whom he reasonably believes is, has been, or is about to be resident in the residential area but only if that information is such as the registration officer may reasonably require for the purposes of the exercise of his functions under the Act and is in the possession or control of the person. Charge payers can, of course, provide forwarding addresses to registration officers if they wish to have the notification that their register entry has been deleted sent to their new address.

Mr. Cohen

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will introduce regulations to prevent the disclosure of information by charging authorities, whenever the information disclosed relates to community charge debts and the recipients of information are not acting as agents of the authority with respect to debt recovery; and whether he will make a statement.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton

My right hon. and learned Friend has no plans to introduce such regulations which he considers to be unnecessary.

Mr. Strang

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what percentage of domestic rates payable for 1988–89 was collected by local authorities; and what percentage of personal poll tax payable for 1989–90 was collected by local authorities.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton

[holding answer 19 July 1990]: The information requested relating to the collection of domestic rates is not held centrally. On the general level of collection of community charges I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 4 July. Final collection figures will not be known until local authorities have completed their recovery procedures, which may not be for some time.