Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Marie Rimmer and Seema Malhotra

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Seema Malhotra]

Q As a slightly different angle on this, I was just wondering about any contact that you may have had, or experience that you may have had, with the Valuation Office Agency at the moment, and whether it has the resources it needs for the work it is currently undertaking—its existing functions—as well. I would be very interested in your perspective on that.

Sarah Pickup: I do not have detailed knowledge of its precise funding at the moment, but over time, we certainly have made a case that we support the Valuation Office Agency being funded adequately to deal with the task in hand, because there has been a very big backlog of appeals on the books. It has been pulling those down, and the change to check, challenge, appeal has impacted on that. Nevertheless, there is still a backlog, and our fears were that if the Agency was not properly resourced, you would end up with overlapping backlogs of appeals from different rating lists creating ever more uncertainty and not really taking away that need for councils to keep assessing the provisions that they need to make on their balance sheets.

One of the things that we certainly would support is a time limit on the time when businesses can put forward checks, challenges, and especially appeals against any given rating list. We think that would help, and it is in place, I believe, in some of the other UK nations.

[Ms Rimmer]

Q The business rate revaluation that is currently taking place should be concluded in March 2022. The Bill would prevent businesses from retrospectively making an appeal against rateable values as they are now, even when the new system is in place. Is that provision necessary?

Sarah Pickup: This was probably picked up by your previous contributors. Because the basis of a valuation is based on rent as of March 2021, that valuation date sits in the middle of the pandemic, so the question is whether any adjustments are made to that or not. You would think that the impact of the pandemic on rental values would be reflected in the valuations going forward for the list starting in 2023, but clearly we will not know that until we go forward.

The other point is that it is a very changeable picture, and businesses will continue to be able to appeal based on changes in circumstances. Things that are currently due to covid could turn out to be long-term impacts on businesses, in which case I think they move into a different category. If you lose trade as a result of covid, that is one thing, but if your business goes into permanent decline, it becomes a very substantial and permanent change in circumstances, and that probably falls into a different category.