Draft Non-Domestic Rating (Alteration of Lists and Appeals) (England)(Amendment) Regulations 2018

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 General Committees

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I have a couple of questions about the regulations, which I broadly welcome. I think we have all seen constituency cases where businesses have an assessment for business rates that are far higher than they can afford, and seem to be based on historical, inaccurate levels of turnover or profitability. We would all like those businesses to be able to appeal and reach a more sensible rating valuation as quickly and reasonably as possible.

I happily welcome all measures to take away frivolous appeals, but will the Minister confirm that there will be no penalty for making a frivolous business rate appeal and then not providing any supporting information? He used the example of making an appeal and saying that the right value should be £1. In the legislation, I can see penalties only for incorrect information, not for frivolous appeals. We probably have to strike a balance between not taking away someone’s right to appeal, or scaring them out of making the appeal in the first place, and asking the office to decide whether the appeal is really worth having. That puts the office in the rather strange position of having to assess every appeal to see whether it is reasonable. I suppose the real question is how we can discourage pointless appeals if there is no sanction for making one.

Secondly, the Minister will perhaps realise, if he is in his role for a while, that I like to ask drafting questions about such measures. I am intrigued by the fact that someone can get a penalty for providing false information “knowingly” recklessly or carelessly. I understand that “knowingly” means deliberately providing incorrect financial information, for example, and that “carelessly” means not checking, or providing information that is out of date or inaccurate, but what does “reckless” mean in this situation? The normal dictionary definition of “reckless” is not caring about danger. I cannot quite see what the danger is of providing false information to a business rates appeal. Perhaps he will give us an example of how behaviour could be reckless but not knowing or careless in this situation. I assume that it is a phrase that we always use in this kind of thing, but I cannot work out what it means in this instance.