Rating — General Rate Act 1967, section 7(1) as amended, Schedule 1, para 3A — Unoccupied property rate — Whether ratepayers are entitled to appeal to Crown Court in regard to a rating authority’s exercise, or failure to exercise, their discretion under para 3A to reduce or remit the payment of rates on the ground of hardship — Appeal to House of Lords by rating authority against decision of Court of Appeal upholding decision of Hodgson J, who held that the Crown Court had jurisdiction to entertain ratepayers’ appeal against refusal to remit or reduce the unoccupied property rate — Respondents were owners of an office block which since completion had been either wholly or partially unoccupied and were liable to pay the rate subject to the exercise of any discretion to reduce or remit it — The amount involved was some £274,000 — On the face of it the terms of section 7(1)(c) were as wide as possible, allowing an appeal, which was now to the Crown Court, where a person was aggrieved by any neglect, act or thing done or omitted by the rating authority — The appellant authority, however, sought to show that the previous legislative history of this provision supported the view that, on its true construction, the right of appeal was restricted to an appeal against the imposition of a rate and the liability to pay it — After a comprehensive historical survey of legislation from the Poor Relief Act 1601 up to date, the House of Lords concluded that Parliament had not shown an intention to restrict appeals to matters of liability but to preserve the widest ambit for grievances which were capable of being the subject-matter of an appeal, in the past to quarter sessions, and now to the Crown Court — The House rejected other arguments against this view, including a suggestion that the Crown Court was not an appropriate tribunal to hear appeals against a rating authority’s administrative decisions — Rating authority’s appeal dismissed
No cases are referred to in this report.
This was an appeal by Norwich City Council against the decision of the Court of Appeal upholding the decision of Hodgson J allowing an appeal from a decision by Judge Moylan QC in Norwich Crown Court who had held that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal of Investors in Industry Commercial Properties Ltd under section 7 of the General Rate Act 1967. The office block which was the subject of the proceedings was known as Kiln House, Pottergate, Norwich.
Raymond Sears QC and Mark Lowe (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard & Co, for Director of Administration, Norwich City Council) appeared on behalf of the appellants; William Glover QC and Matthew Horton (instructed by Hunt & Hunt, of Romford) represented the respondents.
In his speech, LORD OLIVER OF AYLMERTON said: The short point raised by this appeal is whether, upon the true construction of section 7 of the General Rate Act 1967 as amended by the Courts Act 1971, an appeal to the Crown Court lies at the suit of an aggrieved ratepayer against the exercise or non-exercise of the discretion vested in the rating authority by para 3A of Schedule 1 to the Act of 1967 to reduce or remit the payment of rates on the ground of hardship.
It will be convenient, before describing the circumstances out of which the appeal arises, to set out first the relevant statutory provisions bearing upon the point. The General Rate Act 1967 was a consolidating statute, section 17 of which together with Schedule 1 (reproducing provisions which first appeared in sections 21 to 23 of and Schedule 2 to the Local Government Act 1966) enable a rating authority to charge rates on unoccupied property. Section 17 authorises a rating authority for an area to resolve to apply to their area the provisions of Schedule 1 to the Act. That Schedule provides that, where the appropriate resolution has been passed under section 17, then, subject to certain provisions which need not be recited for present purposes, the owner of any relevant hereditament in that area which is unoccupied for a continuous period exceeding three months shall be rated in respect of that hereditament for any relevant period of vacancy. In its original form the Schedule limited the amount payable by such an owner to one half the amount which would have been payable if he were in occupation of the hereditament, but that limitation was removed in 1974 by section 15(4) of the Local Government Act 1974 and replaced by a provision enabling the rating authority itself, by resolution, to fix the proportion payable and providing that such proportion might be the whole or any lesser amount. Thus, from 1974 onwards, the owner of a vacant building might find himself liable to pay the same rates as if the building were occupied and he were the occupier. It was, however, realised that there might be circumstances in which a liability to pay rates on an unoccupied property would create hardship for the owner of the building. Section 15(5) of the Act of 1974 therefore introduced into Schedule 1 to the Act of 1967 a new para 3A in the following terms:
Without prejudice to section 53 of this Act, a rating authority shall have power to reduce or remit the payment of any rates payable in respect of a hereditament by virtue of paragraph 1 of this Schedule if they consider that the payment would cause hardship to the person liable for those rates.
Section 53, which is referred to in the new paragraph, re-enacts in a modified form a provision first introduced into the law of rating in 1814 (Poor Relief Act 1814 (54 Geo 3, c 170)). It provides:
A rating authority shall have power to reduce or remit the payment of any rate on account of the poverty of any person liable to pay it.
The similarity between the provisions of para 3A and those of section 53 needs no underlining and the question which arises on this appeal in relation to the jurisdiction of the Crown Court to entertain an appeal from a decision of the rating authority under this paragraph of the Schedule is equally applicable to the exercise or non-exercise of the power conferred on the rating authority by the section and indeed to any other discretionary power for which no other method of appeal is specifically provided in the Act. The point is, therefore, one of considerable importance to rating authorities. Section 7 of the Act of 1967, as originally enacted, was in the following terms so far as material:
(1) Subject to subsection (2) of this section, any person who — (a) is aggrieved|page:166| by any rate; or (b) has any material objection to the inclusion or exclusion of any person in or from, or to the amount charged to any person in, any rate; or (c) is aggrieved by any neglect, act, or thing done or omitted by the rating authority, may appeal in accordance with the Quarter Sessions Act 1849 to the next practicable court of quarter sessions having jurisdiction in the rating district concerned; and notice of any such appeal shall be given to the rating authority and to any person other than the appellant with respect to whom the rate may be required to be altered in consequence of the appeal; and any such person shall, if he so desires, be heard on the appeal.
(2) No appeal shall lie under this section in respect of any matter in respect of which relief might have been obtained under Part V of this Act by means of — (a) a proposal for the amendment of the current valuation list; or (b) an objection to such a proposal; or (c) an appeal against such an objection . . .
(4) Where on an appeal under this section against any rate the the court sees just cause to give relief, then — (a) subject to subsection (5) of this section, the court shall amend the rate in such manner as the court thinks necessary for giving the relief, but shall not quash or wholly set aside the rate; (b) if it appears to the court that, as a result of any such amendment, any sum paid in consequence of the rate by any person before the hearing of the appeal ought not to have been paid by or charged on that person, the court shall order that sum to be repaid to that person by the rating authority together with all reasonable costs, charges and expenses occasioned by that person having paid or been required to pay that sum; (c) if the rate is amended so as to make chargeable any person not previously charged or to increase the charge on any person, the rate as amended shall be leviable on and recoverable from that person in like manner as if it had always been in its amended form . . .
(7) In this section, references to a rate shall be construed as references to that rate whether as originally made (in whatever form) or as it has been applied in relation to particular hereditaments.
Section 8 of the Act of 1971 and Schedule 1 to that Act transferred to the Crown Court all the appellate jurisdiction of quarter sessions and section 56(2) of the same Act substituted references to the Crown Court for references to quarter sessions in the enactments mentioned in Schedule 9, which include specifically section 7(1) of the Act of 1967. The section was further amended by the Crown Court Rules 1971 (SI 1971 No 1292), Schedule 1 to which substituted for the words ‘to the next practicable court of quarter sessions’ the words:
to the Crown Court and such appeal shall be commenced by giving notice to the appropriate officer of the Crown Court within 21 days of (a) the date of publication of the rate under section 4 of this Act; or (b) the act or thing done by the rating authority; or (c) the giving of notice for the purpose of this section to the rating authority as to the neglect or omission concerned, whichever is the latest.
Finally, section 9 of the Act of 1971 (now replaced by section 48 of the Supreme Court Act 1981) provided, inter alia, as follows:
(2) On the termination of the hearing of an appeal the Crown Court — (a) may confirm, reverse or vary the decision appealed against, or (b) may remit the matter with their opinion thereon to the authority whose decision is appealed against, or (c) may make such other order in the matter as the court thinks just, and by such order exercise any power which the said authority might have exercised.
(3) Subsection (2) above has effect subject to any enactment relating to any such appeal which expressly limits or restricts the powers of the court on the appeal . . .
(6) Subject to any provision contained in or having effect under this Act, the transfer of appellate jurisdiction to the Crown Court from quarter sessions shall not affect the customary practice or procedure on any such appeal, and in particular shall not affect the extent to which the appeal is by way of re-hearing of the case.
As Parker LJ remarked in the course of his judgment in the instant case in the Court of Appeal [1986] QB 17, 23, it was against the background of this legislative situation that para 3A was added to Schedule 1 to the Act of 1967.
The respondents, Investors in Industry Commercial Properties Ltd, are and were at all material times the owners of a hereditament in the city of Norwich known as Kiln House, Pottergate. The premises consist of an office block which was completed in 1976 and which, since its completion, has been either wholly or partially unoccupied. A resolution under section 17 of the Act of 1967 applying Schedule 1 to their area had been passed by the appellants, the Norwich City Council, in December 1970. The respondents thus became liable for rates on the unoccupied property, which were substantial. On June 23 1981 the respondents applied to the appellants to remit or reduce the payment of rates from the outset under their powers under para 3A. The total amount involved was some £274,000. That request was rejected on July 27 1981 and the respondents appealed to the Crown Court. The appeal came on for hearing before Judge Moylan QC, who was called upon to determine, as a preliminary point, an objection by the appellants that he had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal. In a judgment given on November 15 1982 he upheld the objection and from that decision the respondents appealed to the High Court by way of case stated. The matter which particularly influenced Judge Moylan in reaching his conclusion that the Crown Court had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal despite the very wide terms in which section 7(1)(c) is expressed was that the only express powers to grant relief conferred on the Crown Court by subsections (4) and (5) of the section were powers to amend or quash the rate. From that he deduced that the only matters upon which an appeal could be entertained were matters in respect of which the amendment or quashing of the rate would be the appropriate remedy. The learned judge was not, however, referred to section 9 of the Act of 1971 and that, as Hodgson J pointed out when the appeal came before him, furnished a complete answer to any contention based upon lack of a power to grant appropriate relief. He could see no ground for limiting what appeared to him to be the plain meaning of section 7(1)(c) and he accordingly allowed the appeal and remitted the case to the Crown Court. From that decision the appellants appealed to the Court of Appeal which unanimously dismissed the appeal but gave leave to appeal to your Lordships’ House upon certain terms as to costs.
The point raised is a short point of construction. On the face of it the words of section 7(1)(c) are in the widest terms and permit an appeal to the Crown Court in respect of any matter at all which the rating authority, as a rating authority, has done or omitted to do. The question is simply whether in the context of the Act as a whole or from other indicia, including the history of the legislation consolidated by the Act of 1967, a limitation must by necessary implication be put upon the width of the words so as to exclude an appeal against the exercise or non-exercise by the rating authority of discretionary powers conferred upon it in the administration of the rating system. Essentially the appellants’ argument falls under five heads. First, it is pointed out that the Act of 1967 was a consolidating statute, which was not intended to create fresh rights of appeal not already existing under the prior legislation. Second, it is said that if the earlier legislation is examined, it will be found that, prior to 1967, the right of appeal, albeit expressed in wide terms, was in fact restricted to a right to appeal only against the imposition of a rate and the liability to pay it, so that para (c) of section 7(1) properly falls to be read merely as a sweeping-up provision inserted ex abundanti cautela and to be read eiusdem generis with paras (a) and (b). Third, it is said that it cannot have been the intention of the legislature, in substituting the Crown Court for quarter sessions as the appellate tribunal, to enlarge the ambit of possible appeal beyond that already existing. Fourth, it is argued that there are in the Act itself certain express rights of appeal either to the Crown Court or to other tribunals which are either otiose or inconsistent unless some limitation of the sort suggested is put upon the plain and apparently unlimited words of section 7(1)(c). Finally, it is said that in any event the Crown Court is an inappropriate court for hearing appeals on matters essentially of administrative discretion which are best left to the rating authority itself as the only body fully seized of all the relevant considerations which have to be balanced and addessed within its area.
My Lords, the first of these propositions is beyond doubt and is common ground, but the appellants and the respondents draw quite contrary conclusions from the prior legislation. It is the appellants’ contention that a historical survey of the rating legislation leads to the conclusion that, prior to 1967, the right of appeal to the justices was limited to questions of the legality of the rate or the legal liability of the occupier to pay. The respondents, on the other hand, say that the plain and unlimited words of section 7(1)(c) are entirely consistent with what, on the true construction of the earlier Acts, was a virtually unlimited right of appeal to the justices in rating matters. My Lords, for my part, in common with all three members of the Court of Appeal, I have been persuaded that the respondents’ contention is correct and that the legislative history indicates throughout an intention to confer upon the inhabitants of the area the widest rights of appeal in rating matters.
Liability for rates was first imposed by an Act of 1601 entitled ‘An Act for the Relief of the Poor’ (43 Eliz 1, c 2) which authorised and obliged the churchwardens of each parish to raise money for the relief of the parish and conferred power on the justices, if parish funds proved insufficient, to raise sums for the like purpose from other parishes. Section 6 was in the following terms:
Provided always, that if any person or persons shall find themselves grieved with any sess or tax, or other act done by the said churchwardens, and other persons, or by the said justices of peace; that then it shall be lawful for the
justices of peace at their general quarter sessions, or the greater number of them, to take such order therein as to them shall be thought convenient; and the same to conclude and bind all the said parties.
On the face of it, the right to complain to the justices or quarter sessions appears to be entirely unlimited and there is nothing in the context to confine it to complaints about the legality of or liability to the tax. The churchwardens were given fairly wide powers by the Act — for instance, to bind children as apprentices — and the express reference to aggrievement with ‘any sess or tax or other Act’ appears to be quite inconsistent with any such limitation as that suggested by the appellants.
It seems that the Act gave rise to abuses, which resulted in the passing of the Poor Relief Act 1743 (17 Geo 2, c 38). Section 4 of that Act provided an even more extensive right of appeal to persons aggrieved, covering not only rates or assessments but also the inclusion or exclusion of persons and other matters, including neglects or omissions. It was in the following terms:
And . . . in case any person or persons shall find him, her, or themselves aggrieved by any rate or assessment made for the relief of the poor, or shall have any material objection to any person or persons being put on, or left out of such rate or assessment, or to the sum charged on any person or persons therein, or shall have any material objection to such account as aforesaid, or any part thereof, or shall find him, her, or themselves aggrieved by any neglect, act, or thing done or omitted by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor, or by any of his Majesty’s justices of the peace; it shall and may be lawful for such person or persons, in any of the cases aforesaid, giving reasonable notice to the churchwardens or overseers of the poor of the parish, township, or place, to appeal to the next general or quarter sessions of the peace for the county, riding, division, corporation, or franchise, where such parish, township, or place lies; and the justices of the peace there assembled, are hereby authorised and required to receive such appeal, and to hear and finally determine the same; . . .
Section 6 imposed certain limitations on the power of the justices to amend rates or to make new rates, which are arguably reflected in subsections (4) and (5) of section 7 of the Act of 1967, but I cannot, for my part, read it as cutting down the ex facie unrestricted subject-matter of appeals envisaged by the earlier section. It provided:
And whereas it hath been held, that upon appeals from rates and assessments, the Justices of the Peace may not only quash the old rates, but make new rates and assessments, from which no appeal can be had; be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that upon all appeals from rates and assessments, the justices of the peace (where they shall see just cause to give relief) shall and are hereby required to amend the same, in such manner only as shall be necessary for giving such relief, without altering such rates or assessments, with respect to other persons mentioned in the same; but if upon an appeal from the whole rate, it shall be found necessary to quash or set aside the same, then, and in every such case, the said justices shall and are hereby required to order and direct the churchwardens and overseers of the poor to make a new equal rate or assessment, and they are hereby required to make the same accordingly.
The fact that this section applies in terms to ‘all appeals from rates and assessments’ cannot legitimately be prayed in aid as impliedly restricting the rights of appeal conferred by section 4 only to such appeals.
The procedure upon appeals was regulated by an Act of 1801 (41 Geo 3, c 23), but it is plain from section 4 of that Act that the right of appeal was contemplated as covering not merely appeals against the legality of the rate or the liability to pay it but also against the inclusion or exclusion of persons in or from the rate and appeals in respect of, for instance, the failure of the churchwardens or overseers properly to account for the money which they had actually received in accordance with the obligation to account imposed upon them by section 2 of the Act of 1601. Power was given to the justices to order the names of persons to be struck out of the rate or assessment, to decrease or lower the sums assessed and to order repayment of the sums paid.
Up to this point there was no discretion in the churchwardens or the justices, while maintaining the rate, to remit or forgo payment on the ground of poverty. Such a power was, however, conferred upon the justices by section 11 of the Poor Relief Act 1814, which was the forerunner of section 53 of the Act of 1967. It is stressed on behalf of the appellants that the discretion at that stage was vested in the justices and was exercisable only with the consent of the churchwardens and overseers. Thus, it is contended, it cannot have been intended by the legislature in 1814 to enlarge or extend the scope of the right of appeal conferred and regulated by the earlier Acts. No doubt that is so, but the contention has force only on the assumption that the existing right of appeal was, in fact, limited in the manner suggested.
Power to reduce or remit the payment of rates on account of poverty was first conferred on the rating authority itself, as opposed to the justices, by section 225 of the Public Health Act 1875 (which restricted it to urban authorities) and was extended to rating authorities generally by the Rating and Valuation Act 1925, which transferred the powers and duties of overseers to local authorities. That Act introduced a single general rate in substitution for the old poor rate and any other rates that local rating authorities had power to levy and provided, in subsection (3) of section 2, that:
all the enactments relating to the poor rate, which are in force at the commencement of this Act, including (subject to the provisions of this Act) enactments relating to appeals against a poor rate, shall, so far as not repealed by this Act, apply to the general rate: . . .
At the same time the Act introduced a new valuation procedure with a right of appeal to quarter sessions from the decision of an assessment committee. Subject only to this, the appeal procedures introduced by the Acts of 1601 and 1743 were left unaffected. At the same time section 225 of the Act of 1875 was repealed except in so far as it related to a private improvement rate and the power to remit or reduce rates thereby conferred on urban authorities was (by section 2(4) of the Act of 1925) extended to all rating authorities. It is not altogether without significance that this power is conferred in the very same section which, in terms, preserves the previous enactments relating to appeals. Section 11 of the Act of 1814 was repealed, but a new power was conferred upon the justices by the proviso to section 2(3) to decline to issue a warrant of commitment in default of distress for non-payment of the general rate if they were satisfied that the non-payment was due to circumstances beyond the control of the person liable, although the rating authority could renew the application for such a warrant on the ground of a change of circumstances, unless the justices at the time of their refusal also remitted the payment of the rate, which they were authorised by the subsection to do. It is argued on behalf of the appellants that if the respondents are right in their submission as to the width of the rights of appeal conferred by the Act of 1743, this last-mentioned provision has the anomalous effect of giving to a person unable to pay on the grounds of poverty alternative remedies. If, it is said, there was already a right of appeal to quarter sessions against the decision of the rating authority under section 2(4) it was unnecessary and otiose to provide in the justices an alternative power to remit payment at the stage of an application for a warrant of commitment. My Lords, I find myself unimpressed by this argument. In a system built up, as our rating system has been, by legislation passed piecemeal over three centuries, I find nothing particularly surprising in the fact that there is a degree of overlap in provisions of different statutes. In any event, ‘circumstances beyond the control’ of a person may go a good deal further than poverty alone.
To summarise the legislative situation prior to 1967 there is, first, the very wide right of appeal conferred by the Act of 1743 covering any act or thing done or omitted, a right which, on the plain terms of the Act of 1801, was not restricted simply to questions of disputed liability. Second, there is the introduction in 1814 of a power in the justices to remit or reduce payment of rates on the ground of poverty, extended in 1875 to the rating authorities themselves in the case of urban authorities and transferred in 1925 to rating authorities generally. Third, there is the introduction in 1925 of a single general rate and a new system of valuation with its own appeals procedure, but accompanied by a specific preservation of the rights of appeal conferred by the prior legislation. It is against that background that the consolidating Act of 1967 and, in particular, section 7 fall to be considered. Far from pointing, as the appellants suggest, to a legislative intention to restrict appeals to matters of liability to rate, the express inclusion as a separate subhead of the very wide right of appeal in respect of ‘any neglect, act, or thing done or omitted by the rating authority’ appears to me, as it appeared to all three members of the Court of Appeal, to indicate an intention to preserve the widest ambit for grievances which were to be capable of being the subject-matter of an appeal to quarter sessions. It has to be remembered that under the initiating legislation in 1601 the churchwardens and overseers were given very wide administrative powers which were by no means restricted to the levying and raising of the rate. They were directed to:
take order from time to time . . . for setting to work the children of all such whose parents shall not by the said churchwardens and overseers, or the greater part of them, be thought able to keep and maintain their children: and also for setting to work all such persons, married or unmarried, having no|page:167| means to maintain them, and use no ordinary and daily trade of life to get their living by: and also to raise weekly or otherwise. . . a convenient stock of flax, hemp, wool [etc] to set the poor on work: . . . and to do and execute all otherthings as well for the disposing of the said stock, as otherwise concerning the premises, as to them shall seem convenient.
It is, as already mentioned, clear from section 4 of the Act of 1801 that their accounts could be made the subject-matter of an appeal under the rights conferred by section 4 of the Act of 1743. It is clear, too, that that right embraced also appeals as to valuation until section 53 of the Local Government Act 1948 restricted such appeals in terms which are now reflected in section 7(2) of the Act of 1967. I can see no ground for construing section 4 of the Act of 1743 so as to exclude from its ambit ‘other things . . . as to them shall seem convenient’ simply on the ground that some or all of those things fall within what might be described as an administrative discretion.
As to the third argument advanced on behalf of the appellants, namely, that it can hardly have been the intention of the legislature, in transferring the jurisdiction of quarter sessions to the Crown Court and conferring upon the latter the wide powers to grant relief contained in section 9, to enlarge the right of appeal contained in the consolidating statute of 1967, the argument proceeds upon the premise that prior to 1971 the right was limited by reference to the express remedies envisaged by subsections (4) and (5) of section 7 — that is to say, the argument which succeeded before Judge Moylan. Parker LJ was of the view that in fact subsection (4) itself conferred ample power to grant relief appropriate to an appeal against a determination under para 3A by amending the rate charged to the appellant. Sir John Donaldson MR, however, was inclined to accept that there was a distinction between amending the rate and reducing or remitting liability for payment. In his view, the fallacy of the argument lay in the assertion that subsection (4) and its predecessor constituted a comprehensive and exhaustive definition of the powers of the court. For my part, I respectfully prefer the reasoning of the Master of the Rolls. As already mentioned, the statutory power originally conferred on quarter sessions by the Act of 1601 (section 6) was to: ‘take such order therein as to them shall be thought convenient.’ Section 4 of the Act of 1743 makes it clear that by that time the power conferred had been held to extend to quashing the old rate and making new rates, but there is nothing in that Act to suggest that the general powers conferred by the Act of 1601 had been curtailed. The predecessor in the Act of 1801 to section 7(4) of the Act of 1967 was introduced specifically by the words ‘upon all appeals from rates and assessments’ and, as the Master of the Rolls pointed out, section 7(4) certainly does not say in terms that it is an exhaustive exegesis of the powers of the court. Indeed it reproduces much the same introductory formula as that contained in the Act of 1801 in the words ‘on an appeal under this section against any rate’. I can do no better than adopt his words [1986] QB 17, at p 32:
a study of the earlier statutes, to which I have referred, shows clearly that it is doing no more than (i) pick up the provisions of the Act of 1801 that an amendment to the rate by inserting or striking out names or by altering the sums charged on individuals does not necessarily involve quashing the whole rate, and (ii) make provision for the repayment of overcharges and the recovery of increased charges, similar [to], although not identical with, those contained in the Act of 1801. If section 7(4) did comprehensively define the powers of the court, it would render the right of appeal apparently conferred by section 7(1)(c) an illusion. This cannot have been the parliamentary intention.
I am equally unimpressed by the argument that a restriction must be read into para (c) of section 7(1) in the sense suggested, because a perusal of the Act shows that there are other express provisions regulating appeals which might be thought to be unnecessary if the paragraph is as wide as the respondents suggest. For instance, sections 76 and 77 (contained in Part V of the Act which is specifically referred to in section 7(2)) provide a special procedure for appeals against objections to the valuation list. Section 99(5) confers a right of appeal to the Crown Court from the issue of a distress warrant by the magistrates. Again, para 8(4) of Schedule 1 gives a right of appeal to the county court against the service by the rating authority of a notice that a newly erected building has been completed. Nothing can possibly turn on the procedure for appeals in relation to valuation matters, which are specifically excluded from the appeals procedure in section 7(1) by subsection (2), and as regards the right of appeal conferred by section 99(5), this section, as Balcombe LJ pointed out in his judgment, forms part of a fasciculus of sections dealing specifically with methods of enforcing payment of rates. There is nothing particularly surprising in finding these provisions for a specific appeals procedure in this context. Like Balcombe LJ, at p 29, I accept that the right of appeal to the county court under para 8(4) may seem anomalous, although one can readily see that the technical questions likely to be raised on such an appeal may have been considered to have been more suitable for decision by a county court judge than by quarter sessions. For my part, I find nothing in this which persuades me that the very wide words in which para (c) of section 7(1) is expressed must be restricted in the way suggested.
Finally, like the Court of Appeal, I find nothing in the point that the Crown Court is not an appropriate tribunal for hearing appeals against a rating authority’s administrative decisions. It is said that the rating authority is the only body seized of the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions and that in any event any decision that is capricious or based upon illegitimate considerations can be challenged in the High Court by proceedings for judicial review. That is, no doubt, true and I can readily see that a rehearing in a Crown Court by a judge and two or more magistrates, pursuant to section 74 of the Supreme Court Act of 1981, of the rating authority’s decision, taken in the light of all the local factors which the rating authority is likely to be in the best position to assess, is something which may be attended by a good deal of delay and administrative inconvenience if such appeals come to be regularly pursued. Nevertheless, from the earliest times, the legislation, has conferred on ratepayers the very widest right of appeal which Parliament, in enacting the consolidating legislation, has not thought fit to confine or restrict except to the extent expressly mentioned. The imposition of further restriction is a matter for Parliament. It cannot, in my judgment, properly be introduced for the first time in centuries by the process of placing, artificially, a limited construction on the very wide words which the legislature has chosen deliberately to employ. I can find no context from which such a limiting construction can properly be inferred and I would therefore dismiss the appeal.
LORDS KEITH OF KINKELL, BRANDON OF OAKBROOK, TEMPLEMAN and GRIFFITHS agreed and did not add anything.
