Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill

Debate between Lord Hope of Craighead and Lord Greenhalgh

3rd reading
Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, it is my pleasant task, on behalf of these Benches, to thank the Minister for the gracious way in which he has conducted this Bill. We have had no Divisions. The Bill has survived unamended, but it has certainly not been without interest, and the Minister has been faced with some powerful contributions during our debates that he has had to answer. We are grateful to him and the Bill team for the care that has been taken in examining the various points that have been raised.

It will not have escaped the Minister’s attention that two of us participating from these Benches had a professional interest in the subject. One was a valuer, with an interest in the valuation aspects, and I am a lawyer, interested in the legal aspects. For both of us, the question was how one could accommodate the undoubted need for public lavatories, in the places where people need them, within the valuation and ratings system. Standalone premises, which this Bill is about, present no problems of that kind, but increasingly, the provision of publicly accessible lavatories within other premises, such as public libraries, is a different matter. The two of us were very much in sympathy with others who were asking the Minister to be more imaginative and generous in searching for a solution to the problem, but we found it as hard as he did to see how this could be done within the boundaries of the existing law and practice of how buildings are valued for rating purposes. In short, the narrow focus of the Bill has been the problem.

Everyone recognises that this is a significant public health issue and an environmental issue. Everyone—young and old, healthy or infirm—needs access to decent lavatory accommodations. There is genuine regret on these Benches and throughout the House that the Bill was unable to go further than it has in finding other ways to meet this need. I hope that the Government will take away from these debates a better understanding of ways in which this could be done by the ideas that have been put forward by various amendments from all around the House. If so, the time that we have spent developing these ideas in debate will have been time well spent. I hope and expect that we have not heard the last word on the subject of public lavatories.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we have seen the very best of this House. I really appreciated the professional expertise on the Cross Benches, from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. It was incredibly helpful. This is a very complicated area of public policy and it is great to have that expertise to hand.

I add my personal tribute to Lord Greaves. I did not know him particularly well, but he welcomed me as a fellow traveller from local government, where our political paths were very similar. He was almost schooling me on the nature of a probing amendment. I do not think that I have ever had such a lengthy discussion about the word “mainly”. He will be sadly missed.