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Business Rates
4. Mr. Rendel: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how much tax was paid last year by businesses in excess of the amount which they would have paid had not transitional arrangements been in force for those businesses the values of whose premises were reduced at the time of the most recent valuation. [38353]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir Paul Beresford): Following the 1995 revaluation, 265,000 businesses saw a reduction in their rates bills in 1995-96. Of that reduction, £1.1 billion was deferred to help cushion the impact of the revaluation on 1.1 million ratepayers who would otherwise have faced substantial increases in their rates bills.
Mr. Rendel: Given the lack of logic behind singling out those whose business values have fallen to pay welcome subsidies to those whose business values have increased, may we assume that the Minister will now persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to remove the transitional arrangement for those whose values have fallen before the next general election--presumably in the forthcoming Budget--as happened before the last general election?
Sir Paul Beresford: I had hoped that the hon. Gentleman would refer to the previous rate review, in which the reductions reflected on the businesses in London actually benefited them. In other words, it is swings and roundabouts. Businesses in London and the south-east benefited from the transitional arrangements then, while the reverse is now the case.
Mr. John Marshall: Will my hon. Friend join me in asking the Chancellor in next month's Budget to look at the impact of uniform business rates on small shopkeepers?
Sir Paul Beresford: Certainly, and as a part-time small business man, that matter concerns me as well. It is also of considerable concern to the Department.
Area Cost Adjustment
5. Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to implement the recommendations of the independent review into the area cost adjustment. [38354]
Mr. Gummer: In our consultation, all four local government organisations have expressed reservations
about implementing this review and have asked for further work. I will consider the representations after my meeting with them tomorrow.
Mr. Lidington: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the independent review endorsed the view expressed by Buckinghamshire county council and other local authorities in the south-east that the area cost adjustment needs to be enhanced rather than reduced? Will he look seriously at implementing the report by the independent review team, especially in the context of the difficulties that we face in Buckinghamshire as a consequence of Milton Keynes becoming a separate unitary authority?
Mr. Gummer: It is unusual for all the local authority associations to express similar reservations, with differing degrees of intensity, about the difficulty of implementing a report. Therefore, I think that it is proper to listen to them carefully. I understand my hon. Friend's view, and the report makes some very important points. However, I do not think that we should rush ahead without hearing what the local authorities have to say.
Mrs. Anne Campbell: Is the Secretary of State aware that, under the review's proposals, Cambridgeshire county council would gain by about £10 million this financial year? Does he believe that the Government were justified in imposing a capping limit on Cambridgeshire in its standard spending assessment in the face of that sort of evidence?
Mr. Gummer: All those who would benefit from the proposed changes are very much in favour of them, and all those who would lose from them are very much against them--the fervour increases with the degree of gain or loss. We maintain a fair and reasonable system. Cambridge was warned that, if it sought to gain money from the community outside that system, it would be capped--and capped it was.
Mr. Hendry: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great concern in Derbyshire and elsewhere about the way in which the current area cost adjustment works? Is he aware also that there is great dismay that the basis of the proposed reforms appears to be fundamentally flawed because the whole range of incomes has not been taken into account, particularly public sector salaries? Will he give an undertaking to take those concerns fully into account before he makes a final judgment about the proposals?
Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend points to only one of the issues raised by the local authority associations. They are concerned about some of the methodology used. I am determined that any changes we might make would commend themselves to the House as a whole and would remain in place for a reasonable and stable period. In order to do that, I must take into account precisely the points that my hon. Friend has made.
Wildlife Habitats
6. Ms Quin: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what new proposals he has to improve the provision of habitats for threatened wildlife species. [38355]
Mr. Gummer: Our biodiversity plan is accepted as a world leader. It is based on a programme of targets to conserve endangered species in their habitats.
Ms Quin: While there has been a positive reaction to the publication of biodiversity action plans to save threatened species, such as the red squirrel, is the Secretary of State aware that there is concern that it may not be possible to find the necessary resources, from both public and private sources, to fund those action plans? Will the Secretary of State give a commitment that the plans will not fail due to the lack of a relatively modest level of resources?
Mr. Gummer: I think that the hon. Lady will agree that this biodiversity action plan involves a very direct agreement between Government and the non-governmental organisations which helped to frame it. I have every intention of ensuring that it succeeds. I am committed to protecting those species, and I shall see that that protection is carried through.
Mr. Meacher: In view of the known damage that is caused to wildlife habitats by the excessive and reckless use of certain toxic pesticides leaching into water supplies and contaminating land, will the Secretary of State take steps to restrict or ban the use of the more serious pesticides? In light of the Government's admission that Gulf war syndrome was caused by organophosphate spraying, and in light of official reports in 1951 and 1987 that condemned the use of those highly toxic chemicals in farming--particularly for sheep dipping--will the Secretary of State now ban the use of organophosphates?
Mr. Gummer: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Front Bench as Opposition spokesman on this subject, but I remind him that his question is entirely one for my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. In the meantime, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not make such general statements about various substances, some of which have done a great deal to enable us to feed people in this country and elsewhere.
Social Housing
7. Mr. Heppell: To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to increase the provision of social housing. [38356]
Mr. Robert B. Jones: The falling numbers of homeless, of rough sleepers and of households in temporary accommodation, show that we are already meeting need. We are also encouraging effective local authority policies to encourage the most effective use of existing housing stock.
Mr. Heppell: Is the Minister aware that there are 11,500 people on Nottingham city council's waiting list? With the social housing programme at its lowest level since the war, does the hon. Gentleman not think that it is time to allow the council to release its capital receipts of over £40 million to try to boost the housing programme and to put some of the people on the waiting list--many of them elderly or disabled--into decent, affordable housing?
Mr. Jones: Councillors are not sitting with their capital receipts money under the mattress. If we followed the hon. Gentleman's advice, there would be upward pressure
on interest rates, extra borrowing and an increase in council tax. Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to come clean about that?
Mr. Batiste: Does my hon. Friend agree that social housing and all other forms of development are best established against a clear local plan? Does he therefore understand the concern that we have in Leeds that, having been through the longest planning inquiry in history and having been promised a report in 1997, we have now been told that it has been deferred to 1999? Will my hon. Friend undertake to look into the reasons for the delay and try to bring forward some certainty in our local planning, both for social housing and for everything else in our city?
Mr. Jones: I fully understand the importance of my hon. Friend's point. If we are to have a plan-led system, we must have up-to-date plans. I am discussing with officials and a wide range of people outside the Department how we might speed up the system in regard to unitary development plans. That being so, my hon. Friend makes his point at a timely moment.
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