Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for speaking in this debate. He actually brought today’s debate right back to the beginning: where did the £500,000 figure come from? If we could get that from the Minister, it would be very useful for our debates as we enter Report. The answer to whether there will be any further uplifts, is, I understand, the revaluation, which is in three years, but three years could go on. I go back to the difficulty that this makes for businesses to plan when they know they are going to hit that cliff edge of £500,000 and that their business rates are going to go up considerably. I go back to the example of my noble friend Lord Jamieson, who gave the example of the health centre that wants to build an extension, which could possibly move it across; the health centre would need to think very seriously about doing that extension, and this will happen across all investment in different types of businesses, which I think is worrying. This is something that we could resolve together by a relatively straightforward amendment to the Bill, and I hope that the Government will do the right thing in protecting these smaller businesses from being hit with higher business rates inappropriately in the future. But, at this point, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.