Baroness Burt of Solihull
Main Page: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Burt of Solihull's debates with the Wales Office
(5 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, as I indicated, we are having that review, as we committed to do, and we have regular meetings with the VOA, which operates independently of government, to discuss the many concerns that do exist. However, I think most fair-minded people would say that the system has improved. As I said, we have regular meetings to address those concerns and we will reflect on them when we conduct the review.
My Lords, when George Osborne delayed the business rate revaluation, he paved the way for major disruption when businesses had to adjust to seven years of relative price changes in 2017. Does the Minister agree that a simple way forward would be to tax businesses based on land values rather than property values? That way, there would be 60% fewer plots to assess and land values would be more predictable, allowing the VOA to make more regular revaluations.
My Lords, we are having more regular revaluations but I say to the noble Baroness—this is on a slightly different point from the question—that history is littered with examples of ill-thought-through property taxes and we must be very careful about going there. We need to take time on this.