Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Greaves

Report stage & Lords Hansard
Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 2, which is in the same group. This follows what I thought was an interesting and useful discussion in Committee on the meaning of the words “wholly or mainly” when it came to defining whether a hereditament qualified for the zero rating under business rates as a public lavatory. In Committee I probed whether “mainly” was about the area it covered, perhaps the floor area, the value or the use. The Minister made it very clear that it was about the use; I have been reading what he said in Committee and that is very clear indeed. I will come back to that because Amendment 1 is the more important of these two amendments.

Amendment 2 is about the percentage use of the hereditament that qualifies for non-payment of any business rates. In Committee the Minister made it clear that the words “wholly or mainly” were put in because, he said, they are commonly used words in this kind of legislation, particularly in relation to charities. He referred to case law and to local authorities having some flexibility in whether they decide it is a public hereditament. He said:

“The use of ‘mainly’ means that an authority may, for example, look at the floor area of a building and see that less than 50% is being used directly as a public lavatory, but it may still feel that it meets the criteria … because the remaining area is used as storage or for other matters of little consequence.”—[Official Report, 24/2/21; col. 852.]


The useful discussion that we had there again put the emphasis upon the use of the hereditament. The Minister went on to refer to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and its reference to charities.

The interesting thing is that it is not entirely clear that 50% is absolutely clear and written into the legislation. The Minister kept saying that he did not want greater burdens to be put on local authorities and did not want them to spend more time on this, yet there seems to be some disagreement, in the context of business rates relating to use for charitable purposes, about whether the proportion of the use that is taking place has to be 50% or more. The Charity Tax Group says in its briefing:

“In order to benefit from the mandatory exemption from business rates it is important to understand the meaning of ‘wholly or mainly used for charitable purposes’. Case law suggests that ‘mainly’ probably means ‘more than half’; but there is a certain amount of ambiguity about this and the interpretation may vary from local authority to local authority”


which is unsatisfactory.

“It is sometimes argued that ‘mainly’ in fact means more than 75 per cent. Charities may have to try to negotiate this with their local authority.”


I am no expert on this area and I do not know how much of that goes on, but it seems sensible that if “mainly” means 50% or more that ought to be written into the Bill.

Amendment 1 would put into the legislation the exact words in the charitable legislation and the exact words that the Minister said in Committee referred to this legislation. I looked it up. Section 45A(2)(b) of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 reads, for charitable relief,

“it appears that when next in use the hereditament will be wholly or mainly used for charitable purposes.”

There is then another paragraph that refers to community amateur sports clubs that has the same wording.

I am therefore trying, in an attempt to be really helpful to the Government, which I always attempt to do in legislation because if we get good legislation it is clear what it means and it is workable, to put into the Bill the wording in the Local Government Finance Act, which in Committee the Minister said applied to this Bill, which is to say that it is not, as this Bill states at the moment

“consists wholly or mainly of”,

but

“is used wholly or mainly”

for public lavatory purposes.

This is a very sensible little amendment. The Government ought to say, “Yes, of course. It’s sensible. Let’s put it in.” I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my interests in the register as a member of Kirklees Council and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I must say that I enjoyed the forensic probing that my noble friend Lord Greaves has undertaken. The words in the Bill that he is keen to clarify are ones that legislators frequently use. One wonders whether this is for the precise purpose of storing up business for lawyers when a challenge is made and the words then have to be to defined. My noble friend has done his research and quoted case law. The Minister’s response will be of interest to many of us because it will relate not only to this Bill but to others where charitable institutions are involved.

My noble friend also drew our attention to the difference in the use of “consists” and “used”. As he rightly pointed out, a “well used” facility may not get relief, whereas one that consists “wholly or mainly” may well do. Perhaps the Minister will be able to explain the reasoning behind the use of the words in the Bill that my noble friend is questioning. I look forward to what I am sure will be a most informative response.

Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Greaves

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his detailed response to my previous amendment. I thought that commenting here would be more convenient than making a separate intervention after the Minister in the previous group. That amendment—and others in this and other groups—will give rise to the need for further discussions with the Minister about some of the technical details, if he is agreeable. With the exception, perhaps, of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, none of us is an expert lawyer. We are trying to understand how it works.

That is the purpose of Amendment 2. I am not trying to persuade the Government to remove “mainly”; that would make the Bill even worse. This is a typical House of Lords Committee probing amendment. I am sure that during the noble Lord’s long career as a local government Minister in this House, he will have a lot of fun with a lot of similar amendments to much bigger and longer Bills. This is what we do. It is a way of asking questions. What does “or mainly” mean? It is not clear, and it is not defined.

The National Association of Local Councils’ briefing says that the cost to councils of paying rates on public lavatories is £8 million. The Minister said that the cost of the Bill as it stands is £6 million. Either in his reply to this, or at some other time during today’s discussion, could he explain the difference between those numbers and where it comes from? Perhaps he can give us figures for the extra costs which he thinks would be incurred by some of the proposals being put forward.

I have one other amendment in this group—Amendment 7. I had another, similar probing amendment, but there was a technical problem with it. It was my fault for submitting it on the last day. The Public Bill Office kindly offered to have the Marshalled List reprinted, but I said I could cope with what we have here.

Amendment 7 suggests that “mainly”

“is to be construed according to an assessment by the rating authority of the balance of use by the public of the public lavatories compared with the remainder of the hereditament, disregarding the proportion of the area occupied by the public lavatories.”

I have been trying to get my mind round the relationship between a public lavatory—which might be free standing —and the land on which it stands. This might be a garden area or amenity area in a town or village: a mini-park—or a pocket park, as they are called nowadays; we all know the kind of thing—or it might be a full park. If it is within a park, and basically for the people using that park, it will not be paying rates anyway, because parks are zero-rated. I think it is regarded as part of the hereditament that consists of the park.

If the public lavatory is free-standing in a park or elsewhere and the land around it is a separate hereditament, it will benefit from the Bill. However, somewhere, there must be a dividing line between a lavatory in a park and one that is mainly in an amenity area that forms part of the same hereditament as the lavatory, which is therefore all rated. That is the purpose of this amendment. Alternatively, there may well be a public lavatory that is part of a wider hereditament, the rest of which has fallen into disuse, but it is all part and parcel of the same rate.

If the public use of a public lavatory is greater than that of the rest of the hereditament of which it is a part, and is thus mainly what happens there—this might be a building that contains other council facilities: a storage shed or office, for example—I do not know how this would be worked out under the Government’s own proposal that everything should rely on “mainly”, where this word applies to use by the public.

The other amendment I was going to put down was about the financial valuation. It may be that a hereditament contains a public lavatory and, to all intents and purposes, is a public lavatory but contains another use: it is a mixed hereditament. I am not talking about a public library—where the lavatory is just a small part of it, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said—or a community centre, where the public lavatory probably would not be there if it did not exist. How do you decide if a council-owned building that consists partly of a public lavatory and partly of something else is “mainly” a public lavatory? Even if the assumed assessment or valuation of the rest of the building for rating purposes is greater than that of the public lavatory, the latter should nevertheless trump—that may not be quite the right word—or prevail over the rest.

I hope the Minister understands what I am saying. First, how does he define “mainly”? Secondly, even if the public lavatory is a smaller part of the area, can it prevail as the main use? Thirdly, if it is not as valuable as the thing it is attached to, whatever that is—a tiny parish council office or something like that—can it nevertheless be the prevailing use? I ask those questions to find out how the provision will actually work in practice: what is the workability of this, as regards public lavatories? Having said that, I beg to move Amendment 2.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My noble friend Lord Greaves has rightly questioned the meaning of “mainly” and its purpose: is it, as he asks, about the extent of public use? He is an experienced user of such probing amendments in seeking to get to the detailed consequences of Bills, and this one is no exception. I am sure the Minister will be able to give a detailed explanation in reply, and I look forward to hearing it.

The other query that my noble friend Lord Greaves rightly raised concerns his information that the cost of paying rates on public toilets is £8 million a year, which is rather different from the £6 million cited by the Minister. It would be good to know the reason for the difference in those figures, and why. Having said that, I am looking forward to the Minister’s response to my noble friend’s probing question.

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[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, the Deputy Chairman really ought not to continue tempting me to call a Division but, never mind, I am not going to.

I tried to do some research. In May this year, it will be 50 years since I was first elected to a local authority and I thought that I knew about things such as business rates and so on. I have discovered in the past week or two that I do not know much at all. They are complicated and technical. I thought that I would ring up the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and have a conversation with him but I have been advised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, not to do that because I might get too far into this subject.

As part and parcel of this matter, I have been looking at the Government’s rating manual, the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and the regulations that are referred to in Clause 2, and discovered why no amendments have been tabled to that clause because I doubt any noble Lords who might want to table amendments to it would understand a word of it. However, I thought it necessary to table an amendment on empty properties.

The amendment is technically totally hopeless—I am certain about that—but it contains the words “empty properties”. All I want to do is use it to ask the Government: can they give a guarantee that the Bill will not allow people to pay no rates on public lavatories that they have closed? I am aware that local authorities all over the country nowadays charge rates on all kinds of empty properties, which used not to be possible. I do not want people to be able to close public lavatories and still have rate relief on them as a result of the Bill; in other words, I am asking that the Bill should not trump other legislation that allows local authorities to continue to rate empty property, and that people will not be able get away with that. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Greaves’ Amendment 8 rightly explores the possibility of closed public toilets being eligible for the relief under the Bill. As those toilets provide no relief for the public, it is quite proper that no relief is provided for the authority paying the rates. It is clearly an issue that we need to explore, and be certain that the legislation ensures that authorities do not benefit from closing public toilets. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I support these important amendments, and I ask the Government particularly to pay attention to the three powerful speeches we have just heard from my noble friends Lady Thomas of Winchester and Lady Randerson and the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. Those three speeches sum up what the future really ought to be for public provision in this area. When the Government say they are carrying out a technical review, I am afraid that I am a bit cynical about the word “technical” in this respect. I am sure that their intentions are good, but it is more than just technical. It is about basic humanity and a basic provision of human-based services for all people. As I say, I hope that the Government will take this seriously.

To pick up on two or three particular points, parish and town councils are absolutely crucial in the future provision of public lavatories. Although they do not cover anything like a majority of electors in this country, they do cover a huge number of small and medium-sized communities. These are places that people go to, or through, and where people go for holidays and recreation. It is crucial that they are provided with the necessary resources to do what we all want to do, which is, in many places, to turn old inadequate Victorian and Edwardian public conveniences into modern provisions of the kind that people have been talking about which are suitable for everybody.

To do that, they need resources. I keep being told, and the National Association of Local Councils have been told, by the Government that they have no powers to provide funding for parish councils. That was almost the exact wording that I was given in a Written Answer from the Minister, not too long ago. I do not believe that; I think it is complete baloney. The Government can provide funding for projects on almost anything they want. They could certainly provide capital funding through some scheme or other for parish and town councils to renovate and modernise their existing public conveniences and provide new lavatories. I hope that the Government look seriously at that in their technical review because, if they are going to be provided, in many places the town and parish councils will have to do it.

Secondly, I asked a question earlier and the Minister did not reply, on whether the Bill applies to all kinds of ownership—public bodies including councils, voluntary groups including charities and commercial organisations, some of which may be charities. He said separately, in reply on another amendment, that the Bill applies specifically to lavatories that appear on business rate lists. Is that the definition? Does it therefore apply to any public lavatories that appear on business rate lists, whoever owns them, even if it does not apply to lots that are publicly provided?

My final point is on burdens to councils. As the Minister well knows, councils love to talk about, involve themselves in and do something about very local facilities. I understand the difficulties of providing extra burdens on the VOA, particularly at this stage, but I believe that, in a relatively small number of cases, public lavatories could be provided with the relief in this Bill by giving some discretion to local authorities, in some way. I do not believe that local authorities would regard that as a great burden, but as part of their ordinary job. We are not talking about a lot. I have a list of eight public lavatories that are on the business rates list in my own area of Pendle in Lancashire—only eight. The numbers that might benefit from the Bill, if it was extended a little, are not more than that. We are talking about single figures in most local authorities, certainly most ordinary districts. They could cope with that perfectly well and would not complain about the extra burden; they would welcome the ability to influence things a little for the better.

Having said that, I very much support these amendments and look forward to the Minister’s reply. I hope that we see a few improvements to the Bill from the Government, when we get to Report, to make it even better than it is now.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this is an important series of amendments. My noble friend Lady Thomas knows, at first hand, the challenges facing people with disabilities as they seek to do what the rest of us take for granted. Before people with disabilities venture out, questions have to be answered. Is there an accessible public toilet? Is its accessibility such that it meets the needs of, say, those using larger mobility aids? Is it open at the appropriate times? How easy is it to access? Negative answers to these questions may well mean that someone with a disability is unable to go on a trip or holiday, or simply shopping.

My noble friend’s Amendment 14 is hugely important and I am proud that it is also in my name. I urge the Minister to take these concerns seriously, as I feel sure he will, and to press his ministerial colleagues to make them a priority. During this lockdown, we have all had the experience of not being able just to go out, when we want to. For people with disabilities, this can happen all the time. Ensuring there are accessible and available public toilets goes some way to remove one of their barriers to freedom.

Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Greaves

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 24th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

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[Lord Greaves (LD)]

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

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[Lord Greaves (LD)]

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

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[Lord Greaves (LD)]

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]