Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I am delighted to speak in support of the Bill. This is a most pertinent time to talk about measures that will aid our worthy horticultural industry—not least because it is the tennis season. In particular, it is the time of that most prestigious of world-class events, Wimbledon. What is even more important about Wimbledon than the tennis, Sir Lindsay? The strawberries. People were wondering how I could get tennis into the debate—

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

But more so the cream.

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[Rishi Sunak]

It is a pleasure to respond briefly to the various points raised. I thank my opposite number, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), for the typically constructive way he has approached this type of legislation; of course, we do not agree on everything, but it is fantastic to be able to move these relatively technical matters through the House speedily.

The hon. Gentleman expressed, as he has before, a specific concern about whether the presence of an automated teller machine in a convenience store could take the rateable value of that small shop above the threshold for small business rate relief. Having looked into the matter, I am delighted to tell him that we do not believe that that should be the case. If an ATM is rateable, it would appear as a separate assessment on the ratings list and the ratepayer would typically be the financial institution that operates the ATM, not the shop itself. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are discussing the specific issues with the Association of Convenience Stores to ensure that its concerns are investigated and addressed.

The hon. Gentleman turned to the important topic of high streets. I know that all of us in this House celebrate our local high streets; they are vital parts not just of our communities, but of our economies. I am very pleased to tell him that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) is the Minister for high streets and is fully focused on the issue at hand through the Future High Streets Forum. More excitingly, he has just launched the Great British High Street Awards 2018. I will do a plug and call on all Members to nominate their local high streets. Nominations are open until the end of August. The last iteration of the competition saw almost 1,000 entries from across the country and hundreds of thousands of votes from the public to choose the eventual winner. There is a considerable cash prize on offer for the winner and, indeed, a new rising star category. The winner will also receive expert advice from industry professionals. I hope that the hon. Gentleman knows that we take the issue of high streets very seriously indeed.

Let me touch briefly on some of the other contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) should take enormous pride in the role that he has played in ensuring that we are discussing this important issue today. Hopefully, this legislation will eventually receive Royal Assent and that will be in no small part owing to his efforts to put this issue on the agenda of Ministers, and he deserves enormous credit for that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), who had this job before me, put in motion the Bill that we are discussing today and engaged with my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay on this important topic, ensuring that when I arrived in the Department this agenda was ready to take forward, and he also deserves credit for that. It is always intimidating to have to respond to him in this Chamber, as I am always reminded that so well did he do this job before I inherited it that the job had to be split between two different people. The Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler), sits beside me on the Bench. The two of us together do our best to replicate what he did before us and we are grateful that he left everything in such good shape for us to pick up.

My hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) has been a stalwart in speaking about business rate tweaks. I join him in hoping that there are far fewer of these to come in the immediate future, but thank him for his support of the Bill. He spoke eloquently about defending the rural interests in his constituency, which will benefit from this Bill, as he did when we enabled business rates relief for new fibre installations, a topic that is dear to his heart and which he pushed hard for. He should shortly be seeing the benefits of that policy in action across the country.

My constituency neighbour, my good hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), has, as I know at first hand, a very mixed constituency. As ever, he did an excellent and eloquent job in talking about the importance of small businesses across Teesside and the efforts that this Government have put in place to ensure that the tax burden on those small businesses is as low as possible. I welcome his support for the £10 billion-worth of measures to alleviate the burden of business rates on small enterprises across Teesside. I am glad that they are benefiting from that. In the rural part of his constituency in East Cleveland, the agricultural community will, I am sure, welcome his support and lobbying for this measure as it can ensure that its productivity remains high in the months and years to come.

What better place to end than with my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow)? As ever, she gave us a brilliant defence and a brilliant celebration of our rural economy and everything that it contributes to our national life. We are, of course, grateful to her for gracing us with her presence today, when she could have been at Wimbledon enjoying the strawberries, the Pimms, the cream and everything else on offer. I must say that, when it comes to slipping requests, she clearly has a much better relationship with the Whips than I do, as my previous requests for various exemptions for cricket matches and tennis matches were firmly denied, so I have something to take up with the Whips in due course.

I am glad that we have had a very constructive discussion today and that there is widespread support for this particular clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.

Bill reported, without amendment (Standing Order No. 83D(6)).

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. As indicated on the Order Paper, the Speaker has certified that the Bill relates exclusively to England and Wales on matters within devolved legislative competence. As the Bill has not been amended, there is no change to that certification. Copies of the certificate and the consent motion are available in the Vote Office. Under Standing Order No. 83M, a consent motion is required for the Bill to proceed. Does the Minister intend to move the consent motion?

[Rishi Sunak]

indicated assent.

The House forthwith resolved itself into the Legislative Grand Committee (England and Wales) (Standing Order No. 83M).

[Sir Lindsay Hoyle in the Chair]

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I beg to move that the Legislative Grand Committee do sit in private.

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

As we both know, you cannot move that motion at this stage.

[David Linden]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Can you clarify that the reason that I cannot move that motion is because I am a Scottish MP and have been rendered a second-class Member of the House as a result of English votes for English laws?

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[The Chairman]

Mr Linden, you may wish to judge yourself as a second-class Member, but let me reassure you that I will always treat you as a first-class Member. On that basis, you will still not get your way.

I remind the House that only Members representing constituencies in England and Wales may vote on the consent motion. I call the Minister to move the consent motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That the Committee consents to the Non-Domestic Rating (Nursery Grounds) Bill.—(Rishi Sunak.)

[David Linden]

It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Lindsay, and, indeed, it is a pleasure to serve on this esteemed Legislative Grand Committee of England and Wales. I look forward to making a few observations on the Bill, which has been certified by Mr Speaker as competent for EVEL. It is of course a real pity that, should the Bill divide the Legislative Grand Committee, I and my hon. Friends from Scotland will be excluded from having our vote counted. Indeed, Scottish colleagues have to endure the immense indignity of being ordered by Government Whips to traipse through the Lobby to have their vote discounted in person. It is all incredibly sad. My immense sadness in this regard is founded upon the view that, during the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 and indeed after it, we the people of Scotland were told that Scotland is an equal partner of the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State for Scotland might have strayed off that line a couple of weeks ago, but I am sure that that was a mere oversight on his part.

Today, we have been relegated from legislators to narrators, and so can only speak in the Legislative Grand Committee—and speak I certainly will. Before I continue with my remarks, let me say that I am conscious that I must stick to the strict parameters of this fine Bill. I wish to offer, though, a few thoughts on the English votes for English laws mechanism and, in particular, Standing Order No. 83.

In essence, Scottish Members of this House have become second-class MPs in the House of Commons. EVEL basically excludes MPs from Scotland, and in some cases MPs from nations other than England, from voting on legislation that could have consequentials and affect other parts of the UK. There are also financial implications, as decisions taken for England only can lead to changes to Scotland’s budget from the UK Government.

I rather suspect that the days of the English votes for English laws are numbered, but, for so long as this legislative apartheid continues, I shall continue to be a diligent participant in the Legislative Grand Committee.

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[David Linden]

I do not want my hon. Friend to think that I am coming to the end of my remarks too early. I am only a third of the way through. He is right to pay tribute to the organisations in his constituency, and while I have the floor, I pay tribute to Eddie Andrews of Connect Community Trust in the Wellhouse area of my constituency, who does a sterling job of looking after that allotment. There is a long-standing problem that allotments have not been given the focus that they require, especially in Glasgow. We now have an SNP Administration—

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Perhaps I can help. If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that he needs an Adjournment debate, he should apply for one on allotments, because obviously we will not be discussing that as part of today’s debate.

[David Linden]

I am grateful for your guidance, Sir Lindsay. That is much appreciated. I am conscious that scores of MPs from English constituencies will wish to take part in this important Legislative Grand Committee. Members fought for it for a long time; it was the English Parliament. I expect to see hundreds of MPs rush into the Chamber to get to their feet and make their voice heard. There is still time for that, but I shall return to my own remarks.

Tunnel Tech sought to argue that its use of the property constituted that of a market garden. The term “market garden” has no statutory definition, but using several examples of case law, it argued that a hereditament is a market garden if any part of a process of horticulture is carried on there with a view to ultimate consumption by the public, even though the produce of the hereditament is not itself, when it leaves the hereditament, an article capable of consumption by the public or indeed intended for consumption by the public. For the purposes of time, I will not read out the full 2015 judgment; the Chairman is indicating that he would prefer me not to read it out. The judgment found that Tunnel Tech’s use of the property meant that it constituted a plant nursery and not a market garden. The produce of a market garden is suitable for direct or indirect sale to consumers, whereas the produce of a plant nursery is not. I found that fascinating when I read the briefing note for this.

This distinction was important because Tunnel Tech’s operations took place entirely within the buildings. The provision for the exemption of agricultural buildings is found in paragraph 3 of schedule 5 to the 1988 Act. It says, and it is important that the Committee understands this:

“A building is an agricultural building if it is not a

dwelling and—

(a) it is occupied together with agricultural land and is used solely in connection with agricultural operations on the land”

or

(b) it is or forms part of a market garden and is used solely in connection with agricultural operations at the market garden.”

The 2015 judgment noted that paragraph (b) does not include plant nurseries in the definition of agricultural buildings. It is important that we make that distinction. Therefore, a plant nursery that is located entirely indoors does not constitute an agricultural building and is not exempt from business rates. I am a frequent visitor to garden centres and there is one in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). We in the SNP Whips Office have been there before to enjoy some tea and cake and I commend the garden centre to anyone visiting central Scotland.

It is worth noting that garden centres, including those calling themselves nurseries—I ran an election campaign from a nursery in 2016 in Barrhead in the constituency of the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton), but I will not go into that in great depth—are not considered to be agricultural land or agricultural buildings. They are subject to normal business rate liability and will continue to be so if and when the Bill receives Royal Assent.

I can see that some colleagues are getting a bit impatient at the length of my remarks—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) says, “Carry on!” I am tempted but I had better not. I know that countless hon. Members from English constituencies will be wishing to take part in this Legislative Grand Committee of England and Wales, so I shall conclude by thanking you for your forbearance, Sir Lindsay, and wishing this Bill a very speedy passage when it goes to their noble lordships.

Question put and agreed to.

The occupant of the Chair left the Chair to report the decision of the Committee (Standing Order No. 83M(6)).

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair; decision reported.

Third Reading