Non-Domestic Rating (Public Lavatories) Bill

Lord Greenhalgh Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard
Wednesday 17th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my residential and commercial property interests as set out in the register. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for these two amendments which would change the way a public toilet is defined for the purposes of qualifying for the relief within this Bill.

As currently drafted, the 100% business rates relief will be available to any eligible hereditament which consists wholly or mainly of public lavatories. The first amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, would amend this so that eligibility is determined on the use of the hereditament.

The Government aim to make this relief as simple as possible to administer for local councils. When determining whether to award the relief, local authorities should be able to apply a degree of common sense and ask the essential question: “Does it look like a public lavatory”? Therefore, the Government favour an approach based on the physical characteristics of a hereditament, and “consists” achieves this better than “used” does.

While I appreciate the intention of the noble Lord in bringing forward this amendment, I hope that the House will agree that the extent to which a hereditament consists of public lavatories is less likely to be subject to change than the extent to which it is used as a public lavatory. As such, the approach chosen by the Government will result in fewer reassessments of awards of the relief being required.

Furthermore, the Government do not consider that the adoption of either option would result in a material difference to ratepayers. A hereditament consisting of a public toilet is unlikely to be used for any purpose other than that for which it has been designed. This contrasts with the business rates relief available to charities, which hinges on the use of the hereditament. The wording of the charity rate relief reflects that, for example, a hereditament consisting of a shop may be used for either charitable or non-charitable purposes. I do not consider there to be an equivalent issue in the case of public toilets.

I would like to reassure the noble Lord that it is not the Government’s intention for this relief to be available to toilets which are permanently closed and out of use. That is why the Bill amends only Section 43 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988—the section relating to occupied hereditaments. As such, the relief will not apply to unoccupied public lavatories.

The second amendment would define the meaning of the word “mainly” for the purposes of awarding the relief in the Bill as meaning “at least 50%”. As I have set out, it is councils and not central government which are responsible for determining eligibility for business rates relief and it is right that there is some element of discretion in this process. The use of the word “mainly”, which is used elsewhere in rates legislation where it remains undefined, achieves this.

It is right that local authorities have the ability to take a common-sense approach in marginal cases and to reflect on their own local knowledge, as well as any relevant case law and guidance, when making their decisions. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his proposals. However, on the basis of the points made I hope he will agree to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for devoting some brainpower to this, actually thinking about it and coming up with sensible arguments. On balance, I do not agree with him. It seems that common sense would be to make it as simple as possible —his words—for local authorities, using exactly the same wording they are used to for other things.

I am particularly grateful for his use of the term “common sense”. He may find himself quoted from Hansard in future, when local authorities, as they sometimes do, make completely stupid decisions. It is now written down; it is laid down that common sense has to be used. I should declare my interest as a member of Pendle Borough Council.

I have tried to bring this into line—it will not destroy the Bill. The Minister said that the physical characteristics of public lavatories are very clear and do not change—but their uses do change. We once had a planning application for turning a public lavatory into an ice cream parlour, but I do not think that that succeeded. I think that, had they tried to sell ice cream from it, people would not have thought that it was still a public lavatory, but it is still very true.

I am grateful for what the Minister said; I am sorry that he will not accept my amendments, but I will not push them to a vote—they are not of that degree of importance. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.

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I will leave it there, but I hope for a positive response from the Minister on the important issues raised in the debate.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Randerson, Lady Thomas and Lady Greengross, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for their amendments, which would require the Government to publish a review of the impact of this Bill on the provision of public toilets.

Every year, the Valuation Office Agency publishes a snapshot of the number of separately assessed toilets as of 31 March. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, my brief research indicates that there were 6,087 public toilets in 2000, and that number had reduced dramatically to 4,627 by 2014 and to 4,383 by 2016. I do not have the exact figure for 2010 but it is clear that we have seen a dramatic reduction over many decades. As I mentioned in Committee, the current figure stands at 3,990 such facilities in England and Wales. This annual data release also breaks the aggregate total down to a local authority level, thus giving an overview of the distribution of these facilities across the country. The VOA will continue to make this data publicly available each year. Any future trends in the total provision of separately assessed public toilets, as well as their distribution across the country, will therefore be apparent.

Of course, the Government do not want to see further reductions in this figure. However, it is important to recognise that the ability for any public toilet to remain open is based on a number of issues. This does not diminish the importance of this Bill, but it does mean that hanging any trends in the provision of toilets solely on this business rates relief would not be the right thing to do. Operators of public toilets—in many cases, local councils—make decisions on the provision of public toilets in their area having reflected on relevant building regulations and their equality duty, as well as financial considerations.

In the first instance, the provision of toilets reflects the relevant building regulations. For example, under current building regulations, all new non-domestic buildings are expected to include a unisex, wheelchair-accessible toilet. Furthermore, I appreciate that Amendment 3 refers specifically to Changing Places toilets. I am pleased to be able to say that a major change in building rules in England made at the start of this year means that it is now compulsory to include a Changing Places facility in certain new public buildings. This is estimated to add these crucial facilities to more than 150 new buildings each year.

The House may also be interested to hear that the Government are currently undertaking a review of Part M of the statutory building regulations, which covers the access to and use of public toilets. This review will cover issues of mobility, demography and wider inclusion, and it will look at the size and layouts of toilets alongside the range of facilities needed to meet the requirements of people with different needs. This review will therefore look at the need to make any changes to building regulations in the context of the need for a fair provision of accessible toilets—including Changing Places facilities—and baby-changing facilities.

Clearly, a one-size-fits-all approach to toilet provision would not be appropriate, and it is important that any support given to the total provision of public toilets is not blind to the need to ensure that the needs of all are met by this provision. That is why my department is undertaking a technical review of toilets which will consider the ratio of female toilets required versus the number for men, as well as the need for a fair provision of accessible and gender-neutral toilets. We have received over 17,000 responses to this review as part of the call for evidence, which ran from 31 October 2020 to 26 February this year. The Government are now considering these representations and will respond in due course.

As well as the important measure in the Bill, the Government are providing significant grant funding to directly support the provision of public toilets. In response to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, I am happy to give some more detail on the £30 million fund put in place by the Government to support the provision of Changing Places toilets. I am happy to say that the Minister for Regional Growth, Minister Hall, has now announced that this funding will be provided to councils on an opt-in basis so that they can install facilities in their local areas and boost the number of Changing Places toilets in existing buildings. District and unitary authorities in England will be invited to complete a short expression of interest and will soon receive full details of how they can access this funding.

I can also confirm that the Government are partnering with the charity Muscular Dystrophy UK—as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas—to develop guidance to support the allocation of this funding. Muscular Dystrophy UK is an expert in this field and co-chairs the Changing Places consortium. I am sure that the House will agree that this partnership is a positive and important element of a significant multiyear programme to accelerate the provision of these vital facilities.

Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to thank those from across the House who took time to meet me and representatives from the British Toilet Association earlier this week. It was a valuable and constructive meeting and there was broad agreement on the importance of this measure in supporting toilet provision. While I do not think that an assessment of toilet provision in the context of the business rates system would be appropriate, I would be happy to meet again with any Peers who have an interest, as well as with the British Toilet Association, the National Association of Local Councils and the Local Government Association. I hope that this will provide us with an opportunity to further explore what is clearly an important issue, not just to those in this House but to many people across the country, and to build that ambition around the future provision of public toilets that has been called for by so many in this House.

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Randerson, Lady Thomas and Lady Greengross, and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for their amendments, which recognise the importance not just of the total provision of public toilets but of having appropriate facilities which meet the needs of all. However, on the basis of the points I have made to the House, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, will withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, along with others, no doubt, I thank the Minister for his great interest in this area. I should apologise for not being able to make the meeting on Monday. I intended to, but I was caught up in a site meeting on ward issues. They are pretty difficult to organise at the moment, so it took rather longer. I apologise for that, but I have had good reports.

The only point I want to make is to thank the Minister for underlining what I was trying, less effectively, to say about the opt-in provision for new Changing Places-type provision and the fact that it does not apply to town and parish councils. However, major public buildings in a small town—a big community centre, a town hall or a leisure facility—may well belong to and be operated by the town council, and often are. The larger town councils at least ought to be included in that, and I wonder whether the Minister could go back and have a look at that. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I shall follow the previous two speakers in keeping my comments brief. That is not because the amendment does not have merit—on the contrary, it does—but because a lot of the issues it raises have been discussed in full earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy is right to pursue the extent of rate relief provision. There is an anomaly in restricting relief to standalone public toilets. We heard from the Minister during the debate in Committee that it would be difficult to achieve rate relief for public toilets in public buildings for reasons of complexity for the Valuation Office.

I appreciate those challenges in the administration of such a change, but where there is a will, there is a way. If rate relief were granted for public toilets within public buildings, it might just be the sort of relatively minor additional support that kept the toilets, the building and the facility provided there open. That would be a triple benefit.

What concerns me is that the Government are less than willing to find a way to enable more public toilets to remain open by extending rate relief. I understand that that is difficult—but let us hope that the Minister will be able to have a good think about it and come up with an answer. Maybe the report provision in the amendment offers a way forward; perhaps he will be able to agree to accept that part of it. Whatever happens, we have had a good debate on an important issue concerning public health and public facilities that is of concern to many people. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, and I hope the Government are listening. I know the Minister has been listening.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I am conscious that everybody has kept their remarks relatively brief, so I am busily trying to pare down my speech in response to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy.

I appreciated the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, about the importance of town and parish councils in providing public toilets, and the fact that they have facilities that would benefit from, for instance, the Changing Places scheme. Because of the points that he has raised this evening, it is important for me to say that we will be looking at including in the guidance and the prospectus a call for councils at all levels to work together to think about provision, which I hope will help to ensure that town and parish councils are more involved than they otherwise would be. I thank the noble Lord for raising that point.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for tabling the amendment, which is similar to those previously discussed. I realise that his intention is to understand the difference this legislation has made, and I assure him that the Government keep under review the effectiveness of all business rates reliefs.

Nevertheless, as I set out earlier, the ability to keep a public lavatory open depends on a number of factors, and I do not think it would be possible to separate out the impact that this relief has had from the other aspects which determine local toilet provision. In addition, the amendment would require a report to consider whether the scope of the relief should be extended. I recognise that this is an issue in which many noble Lords are interested, so I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for the opportunity to set out why the Government have designed the scope of the Bill as we have.

Subject to Royal Assent, this Bill will deliver a 100% business rates relief for properties that consist wholly or mainly of public toilets in England and Wales. The relief has been deliberately designed to benefit those toilets for which removing the cost of business rates will make the greatest difference to the operators’ ability to keep the facilities open, and stem the decline that we have seen over many decades in public toilet provision.

Officials from my department regularly engage with the Valuation Office Agency and the Local Government Association ahead of the introduction of any business rates measures. Depending on the way in which the scope of the relief was extended, it might be necessary for an additional valuation exercise to be carried out by the VOA. I understand that the VOA has advised that such an exercise could require the assessment of hundreds of thousands of properties, at an estimated cost of around £90 to £120 per property. The total cost of carrying out an additional valuation exercise would therefore be significant, and would be disproportionate to the potential benefits to ratepayers of expanding the scope of the relief.

A different approach to extending the scope of the relief could reduce the burden on the Valuation Office Agency but instead require local authorities to identify qualifying hereditaments. On the basis of conversations with the LGA, my department considers that this would be likely to create additional administrative burdens and costs for councils, which would have to go beyond simply using the existing “public conveniences” category on rating lists, and would have to make decisions on a case-by-case basis.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, suggested in Committee that most qualifying ratepayers would self-identify, therefore reducing the burden on local authorities. I agree that this could be the case, but some element of scrutiny would still be likely to be required on the part of each council to identify fraudulent or spurious claims, so the creation of administration and oversight would remain unavoidable.

While the Government set the legislation which informs the structure of the business rates system, the burden of implementing a relief of this sort and the process of ensuring that it is operationally sound fall to local councils and the Valuation Office Agency.

In the case of this relief, the Government consider that this balance has been met in the Bill as currently drafted. By ensuring that the criteria for the relief reflect a pre-existing category on rating lists, we have found a happy medium between ensuring that the measure delivers value for money and is straightforward for local authorities to implement, while providing targeted support for those facilities for which removing business rates costs will make the greatest difference.

It would be extremely difficult to isolate the changes this measure has had on increasing the number of toilets and changing places facilities from wider factors. Nor do I agree that it would be a good measure of the impact of the relief. However, I can assure the House that we will continue to keep all reliefs under review and, together with my colleagues in the Treasury, to listen to representations on how to improve the business rates system. I hope that, on this basis—and on the basis of the points made earlier this evening—the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will agree to withdraw his amendment.