Member

We had a very helpful Question two weeks ago in the Chamber, asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton. The Minister responded to it very generously, offering a meeting with the noble Lord. I do not know if that has taken place yet, but in my intervention in that exchange I said that it might be helpful if he could broaden the discussion to include the Valuation Office Agency. As we heard in a number of contributions today, at the heart of what underlies the concern that many of us have is that the VOA is making assumptions based on flawed methodology. We have heard about some of the concerns that have been raised, such as that a recording studio has to have thick walls to keep the noise in and out, and these are being charged as commercial spaces. Similarly, for grass-roots music venues, storage areas for sound equipment, the back room, the green rooms and so much more are wrongly being counted as commercial space, when they are not.