Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]

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My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of an informal campaign group which seeks to improve the standards of public toilets generally. I am pleased to speak in support of the amendments in this group, and I am grateful to the Minister for his response by letter to issues that I, among others, raised at Second Reading. However, I am sure that he will forgive me when I say that I found his arguments unconvincing.

I accept that to include facilities open to the public, but not as separate or distinct buildings, would mean a valuation exercise. In each local authority area this would involve numbers maybe in the dozens, not the hundreds. That really cannot be seen as a costly hurdle. The Minister believes that it would divert resources from the 2023 revaluation. It should simply be part of the revaluation. I also reject the idea that identifying the facilities concerned would be difficult. These are public facilities and public bodies would self-identify. I also recommend to the Minister the Great British Public Toilet Map, available online, and a number of apps which guide you to local public toilets.

As it stands, the Bill is of course sensible, but it is a paltry little measure and will certainly not bring the transformation needed. I am not sure how deeply the Government consulted local government representatives. The local authorities that I am familiar with ceased building stand-alone public conveniences decades ago because problems of anti-social behaviour are so much greater in isolated blocks. Nowadays, new sets of conveniences are mainly incorporated in other public buildings, where issues of safety for users, maintenance and cleanliness are more easily dealt with. Stand-alone blocks obviously still exist but are often old and are too often already closed and shuttered.

I also wish to test the definition of “publicly owned”. The definition is very blurred these days. Facilities can be publicly owned but privately run—for example, in many areas that is the case with leisure centres. My area has publicly available toilets in libraries and shopping centres. The shopping centres are commercial developments and commercially run, but the toilets are discrete units. They are not just toilets in shops; there are separate doors to them, but it is a commercial operation.

We also have public toilets in the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff—a large building at the centre of Cardiff tourism in the bay. It houses major musical events and a lot of youth and artistic activities. It runs free concerts and there are shops and cafes. There is free public access to the toilets. The Wales Millennium Centre is run by a trust, but that trust has been funded by major amounts of public money. I know that the noble Lord will say that that is in Wales and that there is a separate set of rules, but I use it as an example. Clearly, it would not qualify for this scheme, but why should it not? It provides the same facilities, with cleaning and maintenance, and the public are allowed to enter for a large number of hours each day of the week.

It is really not difficult to ascertain whether toilets are genuinely publicly available or available for a reasonable amount of time each day. The Minister told us that the Government are adopting the community toilet scheme, and similar types of rules can apply for rate relief.

My concern is not just that the Government’s scheme is not generous enough; it is also that it is not even-handed. Public toilets in buildings still have to be maintained and cleaned, so why should an accident of situation define whether this relief is granted? It could even discourage major new developments from incorporating what would be genuinely public toilets.

The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)

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My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for raising the points highlighted by his amendment and for his valuable and knowledgeable contribution to the Second Reading debate, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and, with great knowledge, by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. I point out that the horse has not bolted entirely. There are nearly 4,000 separately assessed public toilets in England and Wales—3,990 as of 31 March 2020—and therefore this is a very important relief for those properties.

The effect of the first amendment would be to extend the scope of the relief to include publicly owned properties, such as libraries, community centres and other local authority properties, where they contain free-to-use public lavatories. In effect, this would mean that the local authority-owned buildings that contained a non-fee-paying public lavatory would be exempted from paying rates.

It is the Government’s firm view that public bodies, like other ratepayers, should pay rates on the properties they own and occupy, and it is therefore right that the legislation should broadly reflect this principle. The Government’s policy aim, and the purpose of Clause 1, is clear in that it provides a targeted relief to support the provision of public lavatories in specific circumstances. In particular, we want to support facilities that exist where there are unlikely to be any other publicly available toilets, such as those along our coastline or in towns, where removing the additional costs of business rates could make a significant difference to the ability of councils or others to keep the facilities open.

Lord Greaves (LD)

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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.

Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)

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My Lords, I have nothing really to add: the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has set out very clearly and carefully what he seeks to get from his amendment. As we have heard, it is a very good probing amendment that gives the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, the opportunity to set out carefully for the Committee what is meant by “or mainly”. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, this is a good House of Lords way of getting into the detail of the Bill, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. Amendment 7 seeks, of course, to provide a welcome definition of what “mainly” could be construed or interpreted as, giving weight to public use of public lavatories. I will leave it there, and I look forward to the Minister’s explanation.

Lord Greaves (LD)

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My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 10 in my name and Amendment 3, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, which is fairly basic. I am old enough to remember one of the great hue and cry campaigns by women; it would be called a gender campaign nowadays. Not only did they have to spend an old penny—one of those great big things which people under 40 or 50 have never seen—but they had to go through a turnstile, which caused problems for pregnant women. That was a huge hue and cry at the time and was, I think, sorted out—but there are still plenty of supposedly public lavatories where you have to pay. The most disgraceful ones in my view were at mainline railway stations, which started charging considerably more than a penny, but that seems to be being changed now.

Amendment 10 would prevent bodies benefiting from free rates when the lavatories are not open for a reasonable amount of time and at reasonable times. I am always told by lawyers and Governments that the word “reasonable” should never be put in legislation because all legislation has to be reasonable before you start. Nevertheless, this seems to me to be a reasonable thing to discuss in this Committee.

There may well be some public lavatories in tourist areas which are not needed, or not in such quantity, at some times of the year. There may be ones which are needed at some times of the week and not others. It may be perfectly reasonable to lock public lavatories overnight to prevent them being used for undesirable purposes. That was certainly done in my part of the world. There may, indeed, be public lavatories which are open only on special occasions because of where they are and what takes place there. We used to have one which was opened at various times of the year, particularly on Remembrance Day, because it was next to the cenotaph. What is reasonable ought to be up to local decision-making by the owners of the lavatories, but they ought to be stopped from keeping them shut when they ought to be open. That decision ought to be made by the rating authority.

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who referred earlier to some confusion in the Bill about what a public lavatory is, in terms of ownership. Does this Bill apply only to facilities owned by councils or by other public bodies, or to other voluntary bodies and charities as well? Does it apply to commercial enterprises that might provide a public lavatory at the entrance of their commercial facility—there might be a park, or whatever—which is open all the time for public use? Could the Minister clarify that? Is it use as a public lavatory, under the Minister’s terms, that matters, or, is it who owns it that matters? That would be a helpful clarification.

My amendment is about how the Government are going to stop people freeloading and getting rate relief when they are not providing the facility they ought to be.

Lord Greenhalgh (Con)

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My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, wanted to know the evidence that this would cause a burden disproportionate to the level of relief provided. The reality is that, under these proposals, we are not asking local authorities or the Valuation Office Agency to do anything in addition to what they already do. But where we are widening the scope, we are asking local authorities to do something they do not currently do, so by definition that will increase burdens on them and, in some cases, on the Valuation Office Agency.

The effect of the amendments from the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Greaves, would be to apply a set of conditions that would need to be satisfied before the relief could be granted. I will expand on the reasons why I do not believe these are helpful in the operation of the relief. As a principle, I do not agree we should be moving away from the clear and simple aims of the policy by limiting this much-needed support.

The effect of Amendment 3 would be to exclude those who own and run facilities where a small fee is charged from receiving this relief. The Government’s policy aim and purpose in Clause 1 is to target the relief to best support the provision of public lavatories. In particular, we want to support facilities that exist where there are unlikely to be any other publicly available toilets, where removing the additional costs of business rates could make a real difference to the ability of councils or others to keep the facilities open. I understand the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, about free-to-use public toilets. Nevertheless, the purpose of this Bill is to provide targeted support to separately assessed public lavatories, recognising the particular circumstances they face, not to draw a distinction between those that charge and those that do not. Such a distinction would add complexity, uncertainty and an unnecessary administrative burden for local authorities and would increase the pressure on those facilities that are not able to access this support. I do not agree that those ratepayers that operate a public lavatory and charge a minimal fee for the first service should be excluded from this vital support.

I understand the practice of charging a fee is reducing, but those that charge do so on the basis of a commercial decision. In some cases, that fee may be charged to meet the ongoing costs of maintenance and cleaning, which is entirely reasonable. Nevertheless, I recognise the importance of knowing which facilities charge and what services they provide, so I welcome the work of the British Toilet Association, which provides an online service called the Great British Public Toilet Map, which has been referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. This provides visitors with critical information about toilets in a specific area, including whether they are free to use, whether they are accessible and whether they have baby-changing facilities. Users can then make a decision in good knowledge and plan appropriately. I also commend the community toilet scheme, which was first devised by the London borough of Richmond upon Thames and is now used by local authorities across the country. This enables local businesses to work with councils to widen lavatory access so the public can use their facilities without making a purchase.

Amendment 10, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, would limit the relief on the condition that the facilities should be open at set times and days as reasonably necessary. As I have outlined, our aim is to increase the support for the provision of public toilets, not to reduce the level of assistance for facilities that are most in need of support. I would not support the creation of a further burden on authorities to assess and police the opening and closing times of a toilet before awarding relief. The establishment of such a regime would be disproportionate to the value of the relief and would not represent good value for money to the taxpayer. As I have set out, the relief applies only to occupied facilities and is awarded only in these circumstances. While I understand the intention of the amendments from the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Greaves, in practice, they may, at best, be unhelpful and, at worst, unnecessarily increase pressure on toilets to close.

I hope that I have helped clarify the Government’s intention about how the measure would apply. With these assurances, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, can agree to withdraw this amendment.

Lord Lucas (Con) [V]

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My Lords, I urge the Government to take the opportunity to give the Bill some wording that expands its ambit, and to take advantage of the leverage that it gives them—as the noble Lord has noted, it is a generous disbursement of funds—to achieve other policy objectives. The policy objective that I, personally, would like the Bill to support is whatever the outcome is of the Government’s current review of toilet provision in general.

It has been a joke all my life, let alone my noble friend’s life, how there is always a queue at the ladies and none at the gents. We have not had equal provision in relation to demand. We now need to recognise that there are people—particularly those who are committed transgender—who are not easily able to take advantage of toilets that are just for men or just for women. Having toilets that are universally unisex, such as those in the Old Vic and the Department for Education visitor accommodation, is extremely difficult for many women and some men, including me, to put up with.

There are, therefore, matters of policy relating to the provision of toilets that we can reasonably anticipate will come to the fore over the next couple of years. It would be good to give the Government, in this Bill, the ability to lever the rates relief that they are giving in order to achieve their policies. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, pointed out, we may find that over time there will be opportunities to expand the Bill’s ambit to other worthwhile premises in ways which, as my noble friend insisted, go along with the modus operandi of the valuation office. That is fine, but we are missing a chance if we leave the Bill as it is and do not give the Government additional power along the lines that I have suggested. I beg to move.

Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)

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My Lords, Amendments 4 and 12 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, enable us to debate important issues. He seeks to ensure that lavatories that operate in accordance with national standards benefit from this relief.

The trade union Unison has campaigned on the issue of disability and the barriers that disabled people face when using a standard toilet. Many disabilities are hidden. The sign that we often see indicating disabled facilities is a person in a wheelchair, but fewer than 10% of people who meet the Equality Act definition of disability use a wheelchair. Signs that say “Some disabilities are invisible” have become more prevalent given the requirements of the pandemic restrictions. Crohn’s disease and colitis are two examples of conditions that may mean that a person has to use a disabled toilet facility while having no outward signs of disability.

As we move forward we need a greater understanding and respect for difference, and we must ensure that people are protected. These are not easy issues; if they were we would not be debating them today. What we also need is many more Changing Places toilets, which are a very important to cater for. We will get on to this later.

The comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, reminded me that all the toilets by the reception at Southwark Council are gender-neutral, individual toilets. They are there for public use. So things are certainly changing, but we must at all times have respect for difference and for people. As we move forward on these issues we must ensure we keep those thoughts to the forefront and provide the facilities that people need.

Lord Greenhalgh (Con)

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My Lords, I appreciate the backing that the Committee has given to the measures in the Bill and recognise the arguments made in support of extending the relief further still. The first amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, would provide for relief to be given to properties which contain public toilets that are not separately assessed, and for that relief to be determined according to the proportion of that property occupied by the public toilet. The second would have the same effect, but separately for properties which contain Changing Places facilities.

In designing the scope of the Bill, the Government have given due consideration to the benefits to our communities of extending the relief to those toilets that are not currently separately assessed. However, these benefits must be weighed against the significant practical and financial implications of implementing such a relief. I hope that my colleagues present today have received a copy of the letter of 2 February setting out these implications in detail—actually, I think most noble Lords today have referred to it. For the benefit of the Committee, I will set them out again now.

The Government have taken the deliberate approach of targeting the measure within the Bill at supporting those toilets that appear separately on business rates lists. This means that this support will be available to those facilities for which the cost of business rates has the largest bearing on their ability to remain open. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, would require the separate assessment of the rateable value of public toilets that sit within larger properties, and for the awarding of a business rates discount relative to the proportion of the property that the toilet occupies.

A valuation exercise to provide an apportioned relief would be extensive and require the Valuation Office Agency to first identify where the facilities are, and then to assess the specific rateable value of each toilet relative to the property of which it forms a part. This exercise would carry significant financial and temporal costs, as pointed out by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. It would require business rates valuers to carry out assessments and, where needed, to make site visits up and down the country. As such, it would divert critical VOA resources from the priority of delivering the 2023 revaluation and could potentially delay the implementation of the core measure of the Bill before the Committee today.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, mentioned a formula-based approach to derating. This would also result in considerable burdens, for example by requiring the VOA to identify the location of the public toilets. Obviously, the scale of the intervention is different from that for mines in the 1928 Act, but I am happy to discuss that technical approach with my officials between now and Report.

I am proud to be here today championing a measure that will be of great value to our communities. While I recognise the importance of all publicly accessible toilets, the cost of extending this relief according to the amendment would be significant—far greater than the financial benefit to operators of such facilities. I hope that the Committee will agree that a relief with implementation costs disproportionate to its financial benefits would not represent good value for money for taxpayers.

Although extending relief to toilets that form part of larger properties would undoubtedly bring about significant and disproportionate costs and practical difficulties, I appreciate that the second amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, concerns Changing Places toilets in particular. I therefore hope that the Committee will allow me to set out the steps that the Government have already taken to support these vital facilities.

I am proud to belong to a Government who are delivering on their commitment to provide more Changing Places toilets. At the last Budget, the Chancellor announced a £30 million fund to further extend the provision of these vital facilities and my department will shortly set out the allocation of this funding. I would be happy to provide my colleagues in the House with further details on this funding once they are available.

The funding comes on top of the £2 million announced by the Department for Transport to provide Changing Places toilets at motorway services and the £2 million made available by the Department of Health and Social Care to install these facilities in NHS hospitals across England. I hope that that reassures the Committee that where a Changing Places toilet is separately assessed, the measures in the Bill, subject to Royal Assent, act to reduce the business rates liability of these facilities to nil. While there are significant practical reasons why the Bill does not cover toilets—Changing Places or otherwise—within larger buildings, the Government are delivering on their commitment to supporting Changing Places toilets directly through grant funding.

I hope that with those assurances, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will withdraw the amendment.

Lord Greaves (LD)

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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.

Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)

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My Lords, the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, raises an important point and I hope that the Minister will able to provide some clarity on it. The amendment, on the face of it, highlights what would be an incentive to keep a public lavatory open. I look forward to the Minister’s response because, from what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, it would be perverse if, by closing a public lavatory, one would be eligible for rate relief. I am sure that that is not the Bill’s intention but it is important to get clarity from the Government on the issue that the noble Lord rightly raised.

Lord Greaves (LD)

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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.