House of Commons Hansard Debates for 3 Apr 1996 (pt 5)

10.45 am

Dr. Robert Spink (Castle Point): It is a pleasure to speak soon after the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Trickett). I spent election day in Hemsworth and noted a range of quality among the parliamentary candidates. Right at the top, along with the hon. Gentleman who won the election, was the Conservative candidate. He is a good, sound, local man and he did a wonderful job. I am sure that we will see him enter the House eventually. At the bottom of the range was Mr. Mark Thomas--a mischievous, misleading, nasty little person.

Beneath him, if hon. Members can believe that, was the candidate for Arthur Scargill's party. That candidate misled the country into believing that there is such a thing as old Labour and new Labour, but that is not so. There is just the Labour party. In his Adjournment debate two weeks ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) spoke of the poor lady who lay dying of cancer on the pavement outside Kingston general hospital in 1978 because of the Labour party. My hon. Friend explained that there is no such thing as old Labour or new Labour, but just Labour. That is what you get--and I am sure that the country will reject it. However, I do not want to be partisan this morning.

I want to raise not a political problem but the issue of unfair business rates imposed on riding schools and equestrian centres. Real despair has arisen because massive rates increases have caused the closure of many livery yards, schools and equestrian centres throughout Britain, as a consequence of last year's revaluation following the rates set in 1990. That revaluation hit the equestrian industry particularly hard.

One riding school in East Anglia closed following an increase in rates from £780 a year to £9,780 a year. The owner had to knock down his stables to ensure that his rates were reduced. There are similar examples in Castle Point of extortionate and entirely unreasonable increased rates for small equestrian centres. There are simple, do-it-yourself livery yards in my area where the monthly rates bill has increased to an amount higher than the yards' audited profit before rates. That situation is not tenable.

The reason for high rateable values is that all stables in Essex at least are rated on the same basis, even though there are many different types. There are racing stables, dressage stables, equestrian centres, competition yards and full livery yards. At the bottom of the scale are the yards that are the particular subject of my remarks--do-it-yourself yards, which are suffering the most.

These stables are perhaps best described as small cottage industries; they are part of the rural fabric of Britain and its traditions, yet they are expected to pay rates as high as those levied on professional Newmarket training stables, according to the valuation officer in my area. So these DIY yards have been put under intolerable pressure by unreasonable rateable values.

3 Apr 1996 : Column 322

Assessing rateable values is the responsibility of the Valuation Office agency. It is therefore not right that Ministers should interfere directly, but I believe that we need some political steer on this important issue. It is such an obvious injustice, and if we cannot fight for right and against wrong in this place, where can we do so?

As Henry Smith, the owner of a small livery yard in Benfleet pointed out in a letter to Horse and Hound, the closure of livery yards will result in a loss of Government revenue, a loss of jobs, and derelict premises or premises which have to be knocked down. I am talking about the loss of facilities that support this quintessentially British traditional activity. Riding is not an elitist sport; it is something that disabled people and young people, especially girls, enjoy very much. Everyone will lose unless some help is offered--most of all, the people trying to scrape together a living from DIY livery yards.

I must acknowledge the steps taken by the Government to help small businesses, among which livery yards may be counted. The Government have introduced a transitional system of phasing to reduce the impact of the 1995 revaluation. The caps on rating increases are more generous for small properties: 5 per cent. in real terms in 1996-97 and only 2.5 per cent. for small domestic or non-domestic properties. Nearly 800,000 small businesses in England and Wales benefit from these lower bills which have resulted from action taken by the Government, but the Government must take further action to protect small DIY livery yards.

My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) has suggested that it may be possible to find a way of helping these yards under the terms of the White Paper on rural England which was published last year. I do not know whether that is possible, but I hope it is. I take succour from the fact that I am supported in my concern by no less distinguished people than the Secretaries of State for Defence, for Education and Employment and for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, all of whom have written to various bodies on this subject. A number of other hon. Members share our anxiety too.

I hope that the Government will listen carefully to what I say this morning and will take action to resolve what is for many people a desperate problem.

10.52 am

Mr. David Rendel (Newbury): I am pleased to have the opportunity this morning to congratulate the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Trickett) on his maiden speech. He seemed to be worried about the number of candidates in his by-election. If he thinks that 10 is a worrying number, it is probably a good thing that he did not take part in the Newbury by-election, where we had a record number of 19 candidates. Had he paid attention to that, however, he would have realised that it is not actually very worrying, since in that by-election only two candidates got more than 2 per cent. of the vote--the Labour party candidate being one of those who failed to reach the 2 per cent. mark.

I am sorry to say that I cannot congratulate the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) on his speech, as it became clear in the course of it that he did not understand the important difference between worship in schools, which is one thing, and religious education in schools, which is quite another.

I am grateful for this opportunity to raise, as the hon. Member for Castle Point (Dr. Spink) did, a subject which I do not think has any party political significance but which

3 Apr 1996 : Column 323

is still of importance to all hon. Members and to our electorates. I refer to the pyramid selling of business club membership, an issue which has come to my attention over the past week or two as a result of a letter that I have received. It is right to raise the subject before we adjourn for Easter, because of the recent Third Reading of the Trading Schemes Bill which was introduced by the right hon. Member for Chelsea (Sir N. Scott). That Bill has now gone to the Lords. I hope that the Government will ensure that it reaches the statute book and that it is put to good use as soon as possible.

On Third Reading of that Bill last Friday, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) briefly mentioned a business known to him as Titan Marketing, which he said had been operating in some areas of the north. It has also been operating in my constituency, and I am glad to be in a position to give the House further details of this secretive company and to draw it to the attention of the wider public so that people may be warned of the dangers of getting involved in the company.

The letter that I received from a constituent reads in part as follows:

"Sirs

Please excuse the fact that this is an anonymous letter, but the reasons for this will become apparent.

Last Sunday I went with a friend to see a business opportunity that he was very excited about. He told me that he had been involved for about two to three weeks but could not give me any details because of a secrecy agreement. He told that there were very large sums of cash changing hands every week and that if I wanted to find out about this I had to go to"--

here he named a school in the constituency--

"on any Saturday or Sunday. My curiosity was really aroused and I agreed to go last Sunday despite the £20 fee whether I joined or not.

The organisation is called the TITAN business club and is based in Hamburg, Germany. They have been operating in this country since October 29th of last year. The meeting starts at about 4 pm and lasts till about 8 pm. It consists of three presentations . . . The meeting is not open to the public and you can only go if you are invited by one of the existing members. At the start we were obliged to sign a secrecy agreement saying that we would not disclose anything about the organisation and agreed to pay 10,000 deutschmarks if we did (this is one of the reasons why I have chosen to remain anonymous). The meeting itself is conducted in a rather unusual style with much clapping, standing ovations and ritual chanting.