Council Tax
Lord Bellingham Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I can only reiterate my earlier statement: there are no current plans to reform council tax.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. Further to the noble Viscount’s question, the Minister might be aware that nearly a year ago at the Oxford Farming Conference, Steve Reed said, “Let me assure you that Labour will not alter the IHT treatment for agricultural land. We recognise that such a move would be damaging to the farming sector”. Does the Minister agree with what he said then?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
Again, that is quite a stretch from council tax. We constantly hear calls from the other side that they do not like the steps we had to take to fill the £22 billion black hole they left. Public services are crumbling, including in local government. I have heard lots of suggestions from that side about what we should not be doing; what I have not heard is what they think we should be doing to fill the £22 billion black hole. I have looked very closely at the issues around inheritance tax. An individual can still pass up to £1.5 million, including personal allowances, and a couple can pass up to £3 million tax free. We have concern for how the farmers are feeling, but some steps had to be taken to fill that black hole. This Government have done so. We need to stabilise the foundations of the economy and fix our crumbling public services.
Residential Leaseholders
Lord Bellingham Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, the Leasehold Advisory Service does an excellent job, but is there an argument to have its remit extended to casework?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
That is an interesting remark that I will take back to officials to discuss further. I will come back to my noble friend.
Prime Minister: Meeting with First Ministers of the Devolved Governments
Lord Bellingham Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
There are structures. There is a commitment to one meeting a year for the council, as I said in my initial response, and we have 10 interministerial groups, the Interministerial Standing Committee and the Finance: Interministerial Standing Committee. The infrastructure is there, but we have to go with the spirit of the legislation, as machinery and structures are not enough.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, when the Minister and the Prime Minister attend the council, will they remind the First Ministers of the extraordinary success of the Platinum Jubilee weekend and of the strength of the union?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I am sure there will be every opportunity to point to the strength of the union. I think the Platinum Jubilee celebrations were an absolute triumph; my favourite was breakfast with Paddington Bear.
Residents of Leisure Park Homes
Lord Bellingham Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin, and to speak in this debate. The hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) made a convincing case for the need for protection of leisure park homes. She also painted a lovely picture of her constituency. Is it any wonder that people want to go to the rolling hills of the north downs and retire there? What a terrible thing it is when they find that it is not quite what they expected.
We heard tales of pitch fees increasing, and about the culture of fear and mis-selling. The right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) rightly asked who some of the people running these homes are, and what can be done about the problems. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) asked why nothing had been done, when he has been raising these issues for some years. The hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) talked about people feeling almost “stateless”, which is a strong and apt word.
The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) talked about his role with regard to previous legislation, and made a really important point about the need to protect the tourism industry. Anything that we do must not damage that. The hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) told us that his area is second only to Skegness in its concentration of caravans, and we must listen to what he has to say.
Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
I am very sorry that I was not here earlier; there were distractions in the House. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is incredibly important to draw a distinction between sites that are badly run and badly managed, where bad practices are endemic, and really well-run sites that have had zero complaints over many years? For example, there is Pinewoods in my constituency, near Wells-next-the-Sea, Searles park in Hunstanton, and McDonnell caravans park. We have a number of really well-run sites with no history of complaints whatever. We need to find a way of ensuring that we drill down and protect those people who need protection, while not damaging those well-run sites.