Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) (No. 2) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 18th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Lord and I very much endorse what he said on those subjects. I begin by declaring my relevant interests as set out in the register.

I wholly endorse the powerful and often moving points made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Andrews, Lady Thomas of Winchester and Lady Randerson, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire: we cannot, in a civilised society, allow squalor to prevail when we should have dignified surroundings. If anything underlined the need for decent public facilities in the form of public lavatories, it was the series of repulsive scenes in the summer when people flocked to tourist areas and defiled them—in some cases wantonly, but in others because there was no adequate facility.

I want to concentrate my remarks on the Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) (No. 2) Bill because it is absolutely essential that we concentrate, as many noble Lords have this afternoon, on the dire future facing the retail trade—in particular the entertainment sector, including hotels, restaurants, cafés et cetera. I congratulate the Government and thank them warmly for the rescue action they took last year in giving the business rate holiday. They were right to defer the revaluation.

I want to concentrate my remarks on our town, city and, indeed, village centres, and on our high streets. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, in particular, made some extremely important points: if you want to sustain the throwaway society, all you need to do is depopulate our town and city centres. What has to be addressed in the review—it is vital that it is thorough and that we have it soon—is the disparity of treatment between town centre and high-street shops and the vast warehouses, which we have all drawn on during periods of lockdown. They perform a valuable service but they are getting away, if not scot free, then with very little to pay for it. We have to readjust the balance; we have to means test business rates in a way that means the Amazons of this world pay what they properly should, and the small, specialist shops in a glorious town such as Ludlow in Shropshire, or Louth here in Lincolnshire, are not penalised to the point of extinction.

Let us concentrate on this specific issue, and let us also remember that while we have to nurture the smaller shops so that they survive, we have to recognise that the supermarkets have prospered wonderfully over this last year. After all, they are virtually the only large shops allowed to be open at the moment. I thank them for their service. We all depend upon them. They were right to pay back some of what they had been given, but they must be treated differently from the smaller shops.

We have to remember in this context that one of our greatest industries, on which we will depend considerably in the future, is tourism. If we rip the heart out of towns such as Ludlow and Louth by, in effect, closing their restaurants, pubs, et cetera, and their smaller specialist shops, we will certainly decrease the attractiveness of our towns and cities to tourists.

I implore my noble friend to do all he can to bring on the review, but he must make sure that it is thorough and realistic. We all remember the poll tax; I do, as one who never cast a single vote in its favour, even when it was introduced in Scotland. We do not want to have a review that leads to anything like that. We must reform our non-domestic rating system to allow prosperity to return to our towns and cities. If we do not, we will have missed an opportunity. The business rates holiday must continue throughout this next year; otherwise, we will destroy that which we proclaim we wish to preserve.