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Port Business Rates

I thank the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis)—it can be difficult to find out where they exist. As a result, although there is no guilty party there is a lack of transparency in the system. On top of that, if the Valuation Office Agency discovered that my hon. Friend had rented his office to my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes it would have a legal duty to investigate it and to charge. Some companies continued to pay their fees to landlords, as my hon. Friend mentioned, and some are finding it difficult to get those fees back. The problem for Government is that the matter is not something in which we can interfere; it is between the port authorities and their businesses. In fact, some companies have had to pay rates twice, which does not seem in the least fair. My Department announced that historical debt could be paid interest-free over an eight-year period, as my hon. Friend mentioned, and that there would be a fast-track appeal process via the Valuation Office Agency. However, once again, between the Government view and the business view of what constitutes fast track, there is a huge gulf—