Council Tax Valuation Bands Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord True and Lord Marlesford
Lord True
My noble friend raises a very important point. He says there will not be a lot of complications. Is he not saying that, once his new post-2000 system comes in, each time the house is sold thereafter there will not be an alteration? That seemed to be the implication of what he said. If this system is to have the logic that I think it might well have, clearly at each point of sale—not, as he said, interestingly, of inheritance or gift—the system must, surely, generate a new council tax, whereas he seemed to be saying the opposite.
Lord Marlesford
Of course it does: it is the actual price paid. If somebody buys a house, they will know the band in which it will be according to what they are paying. Of course it is the case. At present, if there are major alterations made to a house, there will be an assessment made by local government of whether it should move into a different band.
Lord Marlesford
I want to say a word on the retrospection point. Recently, the Chancellor of the Exchequer reduced the rate of capital gains tax from 28% to 20%. That new rate will apply to gains which are realised after, I think, 5 April this year on gains which have already been made which, if the sale of the asset subject to capital gains tax had been made earlier, would have been at 28%. So changes in tax rates do have an element of retrospection.
I do not believe, frankly, that we are going to have a lot of widows who bought a house since the year 2000 finding that they are paying enormous new sums, as my noble friend mentioned. The big increases have probably been in the last five years and it is very unlikely that widows have paid millions of pounds for houses in the last five years or so and therefore suddenly find that they are put on to a new rate. I think it would be perfectly reasonable that they should be put on to a new rate if that were the case.
Lord Marlesford
I do not think that any of us envisage a system in which each time people think the value of their house has gone down they can apply to be put into a new band. That does not apply at the moment and it would not apply under the new system in my Bill. With great respect, that argument is pretty irrelevant.
Lord True
No, but the noble Lord is replacing a system which is based on a consistent set of valuations with individual snapshot valuations, so he is creating potential new anomalies and concerns.
I do not wish to detain the Committee. This has been an extraordinarily interesting debate. I have esteemed my noble friend for decades, not just in recent times. He has one of the most innovative and illuminating minds we have seen, both as a commentator and as a parliamentarian. My respect for him is absolutely enormous. However, I do not think that this is a practical or sensible way to proceed. I have tried to deal with this extremely kindly. I have not troubled the Committee with some of the range of anomalies, although some of them have come up in the debate. We are not debating the issue of higher bands—although we could on another occasion—or the property thing. We are debating the Bill which is before us. My noble friend dismissed the idea that there might be administrative costs and anomalies. He was not too worried about that, but I have to be and I stand by it. Many local authorities are making massive savings in personnel. We have taken £35 million out of a budget of under £200 million. We are taking another £25 million out of it. This is what is expected of us by the country. With respect to my noble friend and my friends on the Front Bench, one must be careful about adding new burdens to local authorities, particularly when they come up with these kinds of anomalies.
I will study Hansard very carefully, but, with respect, I do not think that my noble friend properly addressed the points put by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, about parallel registers, the two bands, the issues of inheritance, gift inter vivos, disguised nominee ownership and IT requirements. Retrospectivity was perfectly skewered by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. There is a tremendous amount here which needs to be clarified.
There is also a fundamental point, which I know that many people may not agree with or have forgotten. Council tax is supposed to be a tax levied to pay for council services. It was not created to be a tax on wealth or property. We can have one of those if we want. We have inheritance tax and graded stamp duty. There have been proposals for a mansion tax. Others have proposed a wealth tax. At one time, Mr Healey was going to build an office with staff to do that. Council tax is intended to be a tax which raises—
Council Tax Valuation Bands Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord True and Lord Marlesford
Lord Marlesford
I am so sorry. It is rather fortunate that the date of 2000 was the date when the full Land Registry started, because that is basically before the big explosion in prices. Therefore, there would, in practical terms, be a very limited element of retrospection.
Lord True
I should explain retrospection, since my noble friend Lord Marlesford is on the point—and my noble friend on the Front Bench made the same point. What is proposed, if it is going to look back to anybody who bought a house before 2000, is to tax people on their past choices and on potentially capricious values. I do not think that that is a very fair way in which to proceed. In that sense, it is retrospective but, obviously, it would come into force and go forward.
Lord Marlesford
The point that I was trying to make on that is that, for many people already on the register, there would probably be very little difference in bands, because they would have bought their property before the big explosion. To be honest, I think that the people who had just bought a property at a huge price would be among those who I would be content to pay a much higher tax. So, yes, of course it would apply. Indeed, from now on until this measure comes into force, which I hope that it will, people will be able to say to themselves, “Well, if this comes into force, it will do so on the price that I am paying now”. Therefore, people can take it into account. I do not feel that the oligarch who bought a £20 million house in Smith Square with his jacuzzi and swimming pool can really have an enormous amount to complain about if he pays £42,000 rather than £3,000 in council tax. I think that he will be very pleased to be living in this country, with all the benefits that go with it, compared to his own country, perhaps, and pleased to pay that small ticket.
Most of these points need to be dealt with in Committee, but I would just say to my noble friend Lord True that yes, indeed, prices of houses are registered when ownership is transferred—and, indeed, death is a transfer. The valuation made in that case is, of course, made by a valuer. But the number of dwellings transferred at death are very few compared to those transferred by market transactions, so a valuation is required then. That value is often argued about with the capital taxes office, and all the rest.
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord True and Lord Marlesford
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has identified a problem that many of us would recognise. The extremely good system of council tax needs updating. She proposes in her amendment that the Secretary of State commissions an inquiry and produces some proposals. I have to some extent anticipated this because I have produced a scheme for dealing with this problem. The problem is—as the noble Baroness described—that it is not acceptable in today’s world that the most expensive property pays only three times the amount of the humblest and cheapest property. The very fact that there is a differential between band A and band H shows that the principle of taxing according to value is accepted. I say that because I know the views of my noble friend Lord True on property taxes. I am not particularly keen on any taxes but council tax was a very elegant and successful successor to the poll tax, which was a political disaster. I believe that we need to update it in a way that is not unduly retrospective and most of all that does not require the great bureaucracy of a revaluation. Since the old days of the rates people have always worried about the huge task that a revaluation would involve. That is why my proposals are somewhat different.
I start with the table as it is, which is bands A to H. Band A starts at up to £40,000, as was done in the original April 1991 proposals. The highest band H starts at £320,000, which is today a meaningless figure in terms of property values after inflation. I am suggesting that there should be new bands. They would still be called A to H and there would be a greater rate of progression than one to three. I have set this out in my Bill. My Private Member’s Bill has been lucky enough—I came seventh in the ballot out of 42 or 43 Private Members’ Bills—to get a Second Reading date, which is Friday 11 September this year. I hope that some of your Lordships may be kind enough to come to that occasion and to speak on it.
Basically I am proposing that there be a considerably greater rate of progression between band A and band H. Equally, I have set bands that are much more in accordance with today’s values. Band A will go up to £250,000 instead of £40,000, band B will be £250,000 to £500,000, band C £500,000 to £1 million, band D £1 million to £2 million, band E £2 million to £5 million, band F £5 million to £10 million, band G £10 million to £20 million and band H will be more than £20 million. These valuations are relevant to today’s prices.
Originally the Government put a rate of six for band A. They did this for arithmetical reasons so as not to have fractions. They made band H 18—three times band A. I also start band A at six and therefore under my scheme there will be no change in the tax paid from the present time up to the value of £250,000. Thereafter I go up to eight instead of seven. That is a 33% increase for properties between £250,000 and £500,000 as opposed to a 17% increase. In other words, taking it nationally, band A—give or take £100 —is £1,000 a year. So band A is currently £1,000 and band H is currently £3,000, give or take a differential for different local authorities.
So I would be having about £1,300 as opposed to about £1,200 for my band B. But when it gets up to the higher figures and the top level—say band G, where it is £10 million—there would be a considerably greater progression. Instead of being only 2.5 times, it would be 16.7 times. And when it gets to the astronomical figures, even by today’s values, of £20 million, band H would be 42 times as much as band A. So band A would still pay £1,000 and band B would be paying £1,300; it would then go up progressively, but more rapidly as it gets higher. For example, for band F, which is £5 million to £10 million, it would be eight times—and then it goes up to 16 times followed by 42 times. So there is a considerable progression at the top.
The great thing about my idea is that, instead of having a valuation, you take the values or the actual prices paid for the properties. All the properties are on the land registry, which came into full operation on 1 April 2000. It will apply to half of all the dwellings in England, using the actual values paid—and I should amend the Bill so that it applies only to England and not to Scotland and Wales. The other properties will migrate to the new system as and when they change hands. So there would be two bands operating side by side; there will be the present bands A to H, which go up three times, and the new bands A to H, which go up 42 times.
Nobody will be on the new bands unless that is the known price that they have paid. Even if it is a very expensive house, it is very unlikely that back in 2000 it would have been anything like as expensive, so there is a natural evening out so that it does not appear vigorous and savage when first introduced. The other properties will migrate as and when they change hands, whether that is by sale, gift, inheritance or anything else.
It is a neat system, because it would require no valuations at all. I think that it would come into force in a way that people would find fair and acceptable. We have to do something, and this is my suggestion for something.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I was referred to by my noble friend and although I was not going to speak on this amendment—I have made only one speech in the course of this Bill—I was provoked to speak by what was said by the noble Baroness opposite. I am afraid that I am not going to follow my noble friend in trailing a great speech on 11 September, but I look forward to participating in that debate. I think that he is too wise an old bird to assume that he really knows everything about the council tax—but, if he wants to hear it, I shall be there on 11 September.
I was provoked by the noble Baroness opposite, who was quite open in what she said—that she wants more money and more tax. She said, “We need more income”. It was cloaked in the marvellous language of equity, but it was actually the true language of the party opposite. Does my noble friend on the Front Bench agree that, having been seen off on the mansion tax by the British people not very long ago, the noble Baroness is leading the charge to get back at the British people by other means, behind the front doors of their homes?