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Port Business Rates

I agree entirely with the Select Committee. One of the heartening things about the campaign is the fact that it has attracted support from all the main political parties and that cross-party groups, such as the Select Committee, have been firm in advocating that the Government should do more. The fast-track appeal is one relevant instance. In a famous episode of "Yes Minister", Sir Humphrey was trying to explain to the Minister that things should always be given a title that was the exact opposite of what was going to happen; so if something was intended to suppress information, it should be called "Freedom of Information". I can only think that that logic was applied to the fast-track appeal. "Fast" is not the word that springs to mind to describe what some of my local companies have gone through. That case has been made over and again; fast-tracking has not happened. The eight-year spread does not take away the fact that the debt is held on the books, leaving some companies at least technically insolvent. I realise that Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has said that it is content if companies can show that they can pay over the period in question, whatever the technical status of their books; but companies still need access to finance to be able to operate, and we are already in a world where that is more difficult. Technical insolvency is not a status that helps. It makes things very difficult. This is in one respect nothing to do with the situation in question, but it shows how difficult things have been for local companies. There is a system of transitional relief to help in dealing with sudden changes in rates liabilities. To put that into context for Goole, companies tell me that under the old system the rateable value of Goole docks was £298,000. According to the Valuation Office Agency, the valuation was set at £3.1 million in 2008, yet because of the arbitrary high values attached to the individual companies in the 2005 rating list, there was in effect no transitional relief. All that has been put to Ministers privately and on the record, and as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden has said, the Treasury Committee added its weight to the concerns that I and other right hon. and hon. Members have raised. We continue to be told that, on top of the measures already taken by the Government, colleagues in the Government continue to monitor the position and to discuss what more can be done. However, in the absence of further action, the clock continues to move on. Councils are required to collect the business rates. Indeed, the financial consequences for council taxpayers if they do not do so are onerous. The figures are quite large, certainly in the case of East Riding of Yorkshire council, so with some reluctance councils have begun the process of making collections. The result in my constituency is that Scotline has ceased to trade—I fear that this may just be the first such case—because it was presented with a bill of just over £700,000 for current and backdated rates, with £200,000 owed now. The company has a turnover of just £800,000. Of course it has known about the situation, and in January 2009—not January 2010—it took its case to the Valuation Office Agency, requesting the fast-track appeal that the Government had offered. To back up its case, it pointed out that it had been charged for a large warehouse that it did not own and for a common wharf to which it merely had access, as do many other companies on the port. Despite its pleas no reassessment was forthcoming. Eventually, the council issued a summons. The company went into liquidation on 25 February, and 10 people lost their jobs. If the story ended there, that would be bad enough. However, in this world of "You couldn't make it up", what happened next is almost more unbelievable. Last week, the company received a letter saying that the fast-track reassessment was complete and its liability was not £700,000 but £114,500. That fast-track reassessment took 14 months and arrived days after the company folded.