Background
3.The Rating (Empty Properties) Act gives effect to the Government's proposals to reform relief from business rates in respect of empty property. Those proposals followed the recommendations of the Barker Review of Land-Use Planning and the Lyons Inquiry into Local Government, which were commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Deputy Prime Minister.
4.The Barker Review was asked to consider how planning policy and procedures can better deliver economic growth and prosperity alongside other sustainable development goals. The report on the outcome of the Review was published on 5th December 2006, recommending that the Government should make better use of fiscal incentives to encourage efficient use of urban land and, in particular, the reform of relief from business rates in respect of empty property.
5.The report of the Lyons Inquiry, published on 21st March 2007, recommended the reform and reduction of the existing reliefs from business rates in respect of empty property.
6.In response to the recommendations of the Barker Review and the Lyons Inquiry, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in his Budget report of 21st March 2007 the Government's intention to modernise the existing system of reliefs from business rates for owners of unoccupied property.