§ Mr. NellistTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give, broken down into the smallest district or region available, the numbers of people(a) arrested and (b) imprisoned for non-payment of (i) domestic and (ii) industrial and commercial rates in each of the last five years of the operation of the general rates system.
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonInformation is not available in the form requested. The number of applications for civil imprisonment for non-payment of rates and taxes disposed of by the Scottish courts in the years 1984 to 1988 are given in the table. The Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987, which came into operation on 30 November 1988, abolished civil imprisonment for failure to pay rates or any tax.
Applications 1984 90 1985 7 1986 2 1987 1 1988 None