Pratt v North West Norfolk Assessment Committee and County Valuation Committee for the County of Norfolk

Pratt v North West Norfolk Assessment Committee and County Valuation Committee for the County of Norfolk

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

COURT OF APPEAL

LORD GREENE MR, MACKINNON AND TUCKER LJJ

12, 13 NOVEMBER 1945

Rates and Rating – Valuation list – Proposals by county valuation committee to increase large proportion of assessments in area – Systematic examination of all assessments in rating area by county valuation officer with a view to revaluation – Separate proposals in respect of each hereditament – Whether valuation committee making in effect a new valuation list – Rating and Valuation Act, 1925 (c 90), ss 18, 19, 21(2), 31(3), 37 – Rating and Valuation (Postponement of Valuations) Act, 1938 (c 19), s 1 – Rating and Valuation (Postponement of Valuations) Act, 1940 (c 12), s 1(3).

In December 1940, the appellant county valuation committee, being of opinion that the general level of the existing assessments in the rating area was too low, made proposals to increase the assessments of a great number of houses. The assessment committee, on 14 November 1941, approved the proposals and between November 1941, and December 1942, the valuation committee made proposals relating to some 577 hereditaments. The assessments of nearly all these hereditaments were increased by the assessment committee. In addition to these proposals the acting county valuation officer undertook a systematic examination of all the assessments in the rating area and a further 618 hereditaments were inspected by him on behalf of the valuation committee with a view to revaluing all of them. One of the hereditaments affected by these measures was that of the respondent, the county valuation committee having made, on 17 August 1942, a proposal to amend the current valuation list, which had come into force on 1 April 1934, by raising the gross value of the respondent’s hereditament from £14 to £20, and the rateable value from £8 to £12. On 18 December 1942, the assessment committee allowed the proposal and the 1934 list was amended in that respect. In making the proposals to increase the gross and rateable values of the hereditaments, including that of the respondent, the valuation committee acted under the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, s 37, whereby any person, including the valuation committee, aggrieved by the incorrectness or unfairness of any matter in the valuation list for the time being in force might make a “proposal” for the amendment of the list. On appeal, the principal question for the determination of the court was whether the respondent’s assessment was invalid on the ground that it was part of an operation amounting in substance to the making of a new valuation list contrary to the provisions of the Rating and Valuation 􀂭 4􀀉 (Postponement of Valuation) Acts, 1938 and 1940:—

Held – (i) The proposal of the county valuation committee and its acceptance by the assessment committee and the consequent amendment of the 1934 valuation list were within the powers conferred upon those bodies by the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, s 37.

(ii) even assuming that the county valuation committee was in fact engaged in an operation resulting in an alteration of all the assessments, such operation, if carried out within the powers conferred by the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, s 37, was lawful; the consequential entries in the valuation list were still amendments of the existing list and did not amount, in effect, to the making of a new list.

(iii) the assessment made upon the respondent was, therefore, valid and must stand.

Decision of the Divisional Court ([1945] 2 All ER 78) reversed.

Notes

The Divisional Court held unanimously that the county valuation committee had no power to use the provisions for amendment in the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, s 37, to bring into existence a new valuation list by piecemeal revaluation. The Court of Appeal now decides that no such new list can be brought into existence at all except by means of the statutory procedure laid down by sect 19 of the Act, and that such amendments are, therefore, valid. Dicta in R v Worthing Borough Council and Murphy Radio Ltd v Welwyn Garden City, suggesting the contrary, cannot be supported.

As the procedure under Baines Act has been little used, attention may be drawn to the form of order here made, at p 13, post. As to Amendment of Valuation Lists, see Halsbury, Hailsham Edn, Vol 27, pp 484–488, para 913; and for Cases, see Digest, Supp, Rates and Rating, Nos 1147a–1161a. For the Rating and Valuation (Postponement of Valuation) Acts, 1938 and 1940, see Halsbury’s Statutes, Vols 31 and 33, pp 614, 615 and 361, 362, respectively.

Cases referred to in judgments

R v Worthing Borough Council and Horsham and Worthing Assessment Committee, Ex p Burgess [1937] 2 All ER 681, 106 LJKB 810, sub nom R v Horsham and Worthing Assessment Committee, Ex p Burgess [1937] 2 KB 408, Digest Supp, 157 LT 41.

Murphy Radio Ltd v Welwyn Garden City Rating Authority [1943] 2 All ER 16, 168 LT 427.

Appeal

Appeal by the respondents, the North-West Norfolk Assessment Committee and the County Valuation Committee for the county of Norfolk, from a decision of the Divisional Court (Lewis, Oliver and Birkett JJ), dated 4 May 1945, and reported ([1945] 2 All ER 78), where the facts are fully set out. The matter came before the Divisional Court on a special case stated for the opinion of the High Court by consent of the parties under an order of Cohen J pursuant to the Quarter Sessions Act, 1849, s 11. The stated case, after setting out the facts, concluded with these words in para 13:

‘The question for the opinion of the court is whether or not upon the facts stated herein the said proposal is a valid or legal proposal. If the said proposal is a good and valid proposal, then the gross value of £20 determined by the said assessment committee will be confirmed. If the said proposal is illegal and invalid, then the gross value of £14 as stated in the current valuation list will stand unaltered.’

The preliminary point was taken in the Divisional Court by counsel for the present appellants that there was no jurisdiction in that court to examine the validity of the assessment in question. The point was decided against the present appellants by the Divisional Court and was not taken before the Court of Appeal. Accordingly, the judgment of the Divisional Court stands on that matter.

A S Comyns Carr KC and Harold B Williams for the appellants.

F W Beney KC and Gilbert Dare for the respondent.

13 November 1945. The following judgments were delivered.

LORD GREENE MR. It is important at the outset to have a clear view of the relevant facts, because it is on an appreciation of those facts, when related to the statutory provisions, that the decision depends. I do not propose to go through all the matters mentioned in the special case, but there are one or two circumstances that are important. The assessment in question, which is now said to be illegal, was one of a number of assessments made in the parish of  Heacham. Heacham is one of the 29 parishes in the rating area. The rating area consists of those 29 parishes, and the rating authority for the area is the Docking Rural District Council. What the county valuation committee has done, as appears from the case, is this: In Dec 1940, it formed the opinion that the general level of the existing assessments in the rating area was too low. It also appears that the acting county valuation officer, on behalf of the county valuation committee, was, in Dec 1942, actively making a systematic inspection and revaluation of all the hereditaments in the rating area, with a view to the making of further proposals so as to raise the general level of the existing assessments in the rating area. It does not appear from the case whether the justification for the view that the general level was too low was that there had been a change in circumstances since the making of the 1934 valuation list, or whether the justification was that the original assessments were too low, or partly one and partly the other. The case is silent on that matter, and, in my opinion, it is of no real importance. I only mention it because an attempt was made to base some point upon it in the course of the argument for the respondent. The actual proposals which have been made from time to time by the county valuation committee began in Dec 1940, with 22 houses in one of the parishes, Ingoldisthorpe, 17 in Heacham, and 5 in Dersingham, which was another of the 29 parishes. The rating authority itself had already made proposals to increase the assessments of those hereditaments, but their proposed figures were lower than those put forward by the county valuation committee.

In Nov 1941, the committee’s proposals were approved by the assessment committee. Then, in Dec 1941, and again in Dec 1942, the county valuation committee made further proposals amounting in all to 577 hereditaments, including the hereditament the subject-matter of these proceedings. The fate of those proposals was as follows: they were all accepted, with the exception of 8 of them, two of those 8 stand adjourned, and I gather from the language used in the case that the other 6 were rejected. With regard to them, therefore, the valuation list of 1934 stands unamended. The county valuation officer made further inspections of 618 hereditaments, in the three parishes of Heacham, Snettisham and Dersingham, but no proposals have been made with regard to them, with the exception of certain hereditaments in the parish of Heacham. As I have already pointed out, the committee are engaged in a systematic inspection and revaluation of the whole of the area.

To sum up the effect of those facts, the position is obviously as follows. The existing valuation list, which came into force on 1 April 1934, has been amended in certain particulars. All the proposals so far made, with the exception of the 8, 6 of which were rejected, have been accepted, and the valuation list, therefore, in respect of those accepted proposals stands amended. In so far as it has not been amended, it remains the valuation list in force. What the total number of hereditaments is in the whole of the rating area, we do not know, but it is fair to assume that those 29 parishes comprise a large number of hereditaments which at present have not been made the subject of any proposal. There are also a number of hereditaments in the parishes in respect of which proposals have already been made which have not been inspected or valued, and have not been made the subject-matter of proposals down to the present day.

Whether or not the county valuation committee, when it has completed its valuation, will think fit to make any, and, if so, how many, proposals with regard to the remaining hereditaments in the rating area is quite uncertain; we do not know. For all we can tell, they may come to the conclusion that they will not make any further proposals in the rating area at all, or they may decide that some or all of the hereditaments are hereditaments in respect of which they ought to make a proposal. But not only do we not know whether any proposals will be made at all, but it is quite impossible for us to tell, on the assumption that further proposals will be made, what the fate of those proposals will be. They may be accepted, if made, or they may be rejected. If they are accepted, the valuation list will be amended. If they are rejected, the valuation list will not be amended.

Those are the facts on which the Divisional Court has held that the assessment now in question is illegal. The ground on which it is said to be illegal, broadly stated, is that the operation on which the county valuation committee has been engaged in respect of this particular rating area is one which in  substance is the making of a new valuation list, and that the making of a new valuation list is prohibited during the period of suspense laid down by the Rating and Valuation (Postponement of Valuation) Act, 1938, followed by the Rating and Valuation (Postponement of Valuation) Act, 1940. It is said: here is the county valuation committee engaged on an operation, namely, the making of a new valuation list, which is prohibited by statute, and, therefore, any changes in assessments made in pursuance of that operation must be illegal. That is the substance of the argument. It appears to me, with all respect, that, once the facts are appreciated, that conclusion cannot possibly stand. Let me assume that the operation on which the valuation committee is engaged is completed. It is impossible on these facts to see what the result will be when that happens. As I have already pointed out, for all we know the valuation list may be left standing, with the exception of what has already been done, or it may be altered in further particulars. But to call the result a new valuation list appears to me to be a misconception both of what a valuation list means, and of the effect of amendments resulting from proposals under the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, s 37. When the operations are completed, there will be in existence a document, and that document, it seems to me, quite clearly will be the 1934 valuation list amended in such particulars as in the result may be made the subject of amendment. In so far as there are no alterations in the 1934 list, obviously the assessments appearing in that document will continue to owe their legal validity and force to the fact that they appear in that valuation list and to nothing else.

They will derive no force of any kind whatsoever from the circumstance that the valuation committee has valued those hereditaments, and has either decided not to put forward a proposal, or has put forward a proposal which has been rejected. If that happens, it simply means that those items in the valuation list are left undisturbed; the fact that an attempt is made to amend them will not alter the position at all. The position of such a document, the ultimate form of which is quite uncertain on the facts, is, as I have said, that it is the 1934 valuation list amended by means of such proposals as may be accepted under sect 37.

It is an argument which it is sometimes difficult to combat, to assert that a thing is something which it is not by saying that in substance it is what it is not, but in this case I cannot see what force that argument has got. It is simply not true to say that the list as amended pursuant to accepted proposals is a new valuation list, and to put in the words “in substance” does not make it any more true. You have to look and see what the document is upon which, and upon the entries in which, legal rights depend, and if you look at the source of the legal rights which flow from entry in the document, in so far as it has not been altered by a proposal, they flow from the valuation list itself as originally made. In so far as a proposal has been made and has been adopted and the consequential amendment has been made in the valuation list, that entry owes its force to the amendment made under the powers of sect 37. To say that such a document is in substance a new valuation list I am afraid is an argument which I am quite unable to follow, much less to accept. On the facts, therefore, in this case, it appears to me quite impossible to establish the proposition that the present assessment is invalid on the ground that it is part of an operation amounting in substance to the making of a new valuation list.

But, in support of the argument, certain considerations were urged to which I must make reference. It was said by counsel for the respondent that the circumstance that the particular authority which was engaged in this operation was the county valuation committee, who are not the body entrusted with the duty of making valuation lists under sect 19, was immaterial. The argument which had been suggested by the appellants was: how can it be said that this operation is in substance the making of a new valuation list when the body conducting the operation is not the body who, by the statute, is given the task of making a valuation list? Counsel for the respondent said that that argument really carries no weight, for the reason that under sect 37 proposals can be made by the very authority which, in normal times, prepares the draft valuation list, namely, the rating authority, and that, in the present case, the rating authority itself might have undertaken the very task which has been undertaken by the county valuation committee. I do not pause to inquire whether that argument of counsel for the respondent is right or wrong. I will assume that it is right and examine the arguments on the assumption that the operation now being conducted by the valuation committee had in fact been conducted, and was being conducted, by the rating authority itself. It could no more be said in that case, in my opinion, that the rating authority was engaged in making a new valuation list than it could be said in the case where the operation is being conducted by the valuation committee. Incidentally, the making of a new valuation list in any intelligible sense does not describe the function which, under sects 19 and 25, falls on the rating authority. The rating authority prepares the draft list. Its duty is to prepare the draft list and that is published and is an advertisement to those concerned. The actual document which produces the legal effect and becomes the valuation list, that is to say, a list the entries in which fix the liability of the ratepayer, is a document which comes into existence through the action of the assessment committee. Until the assessment committee has performed its function with regard to the draft list and dealt with objections, there is no valuation list in existence, there is only a draft list. Therefore, the function of making a valuation list in any intelligible sense is not the function of the rating authority at all. But that is by the way.

The argument presented to us by counsel for the respondent may be conveniently dealt with, I think, under three heads which possibly were somewhat mixed up at one stage in the argument. The first head, as I understood it, was something like this: the real vice of what was done lay in the circumstance that a general valuation was being made of the whole of the rating area. That, if I understood counsel for the respondent correctly, meant that a new valuation list was in substance being prepared. That seems to me to be an impossible view. What the county valuation committee was doing in conducting this valuation was merely this: the valuation by itself was a thing which had no legal effect whatsoever: the valuation was made for the purpose of informing the valuation committee as to whether there was, or was not, a case for making proposals in respect of the hereditaments valued. The valuation no doubt would be useful to enable them to support a proposal if they decided to make it, but the valuation itself was quite clearly carried out with the sole object of seeing whether any and what proposals should be made. To say that that valuation was in substance the making of a new valuation list, in my opinion, is not really an intelligible proposition. It was nothing of the kind.

Counsel for the respondent in that branch of his argument, if I understood him rightly, repudiated the suggestion that the number of proposals which might be made or accepted as the result of the valuation was a material matter, because it was the valuation irrespective of the consequences which mightensue as the result of it which constituted the vice and turned the whole operation into the making in substance of a new valuation list. But he had another argument which I think on analysis must be a different one and that argument was this: It is, he said, a question of degree. That argument really amounts to this, that you must look and see what it is that has happened and if what has happened amounts to a sufficiently large revision of the valuation list then in substance it must be regarded as the making of a new valuation list. What precise percentage of alterations would be necessary to produce that result was naturally left in obscurity. It would be surely intolerable that the validity of assessments should depend on what a court subsequently should consider was the precise point at which the making of a proposal and the amendment of the valuation list ceased to be a legitimate operation under sect 37 and became an illegitimate operation on the ground that it was in substance the making of a new valuation list. That would leave the whole of the list in a state of chaos and uncertainty. Quite apart from those considerations, the answer to the argument I think again is this. It is not true to say that an existing valuation list which has been altered 5 per cent, 10 per cent, 75 per cent, 80 per cent, 90 cent, if you like 99 per cent, and left standing with regard to the balance is a new valuation list. It is not; it is an amended valuation list and the extent of the area which the amendments cover appears to me to be neither here nor there. There is nothing in sect 37 to suggest that the area of permitted proposals and consequential amendment is to be restricted by any such consideration. In fact, it is, I think, true to say that the decision of the Divisional Court and the argument which was presented to us on behalf of the respondent require an entire re-writing of sect 37.

There was one further point taken and that was something of this nature, if I followed it correctly; that however that may be in the case of what you might call sporadic action with regard to individual hereditaments, however true it may be to say that a very large number of amendments of that character are legitimate, once the proposal in question is made pursuant to a general valuation and a general theory, for instance, of a general rise in values over the area, it becomes automatically wrong for some reason. Although, as I say, you could have amendments up to 90 per cent of the hereditaments based on the particular circumstances of each hereditament, you could not have amendments of 90 per cent of the hereditaments where the alteration was based on a general rise in values. There is not a word of that to be found in sect 37. It is quite illegitimate to my mind to write into sect 37 a new proviso, “Provided always that proposals of more than a certain percentage,” whatever you like, “which are based on a general rise in values may not be made.” It simply is not there and the distinction is nowhere drawn by the Legislature.

The argument really depends on some observations made in the course of two cases in the Divisional Court. The first one is R v Worthing Borough Council and Horsham and Worthing Assessment Committee, Ex p Burgess. That was a case where a very large number of proposals with regard to shops, houses and flats in the borough were made. “The Rating and Valuation Committee of the Worthing Council resolved that a re-valuation of premises be carried out with a view to proposals being made for the amendment of the Valuation List.” A very large number of proposals indeed ensued. There were well over 20,000, so obviously it was a very large operation indeed carried out on the basis that the existing valuations were too low. The Divisional Court upheld the legality of the proceedings and in the course of their judgment they appear to suggest a distinction between cases where amendments are proposed as the result of some general consideration and cases where amendments are proposed by reason of the particular circumstances of specific individual hereditaments. What I mean will be clear from reading a passage or two from the judgment of Lord Hewart LCJ, who said this ([1937] 2 All ER 681, at p 683, 685):

‘It is manifest, therefore, at the outset, that what was being considered by the borough of Worthing was not a suggestion for the making of a new valuation list, because of some general consideration, such as a general rise in the annual value of the properties, but a suggestion for a detailed revision of the current list because of specific incorrectness in the case of a series of individual hereditaments … Nobody here suggests that the causa causans of the action complained of was, or was believed to be, a fluctuation of general value, occurring after the bringing into force of the valuation list.’

Then Singleton J said ([1937] 2 All ER 681, at p 690):

‘The argument that what took place was the making of a new valuation within the quinquennial period fails on the facts. No new list was made, but a very large number of amendments were made to the current list. If something was done which was in fact the making of a new list, it might well be said to be contrary to the spirit of the Act, and, in particular to that of sect. 19, but that did not take place. There is no need to consider such a case unless and until it arises, and it may then turn out really to be a question of fact.’

In that case, having regard to the view which was taken of the facts, the proposals in question, although there were a very large number of them indeed, were regarded as being of a specific and individual nature. That was considered by the Divisional Court to be a sufficient ground for deciding the case without going into the larger question. But in so far as the suggested distinction referred to in the passages which I have read was made in those judgments, if indeed that distinction has even the force of dictum, which I do not think it has, I should with respect, disagree with it. I can see no justification whatever, once it is admitted that a large number of proposals can be made, provided they are specific, for saying that a similar large number of proposals cannot be made because they are based on some general proposition. That idea is one which I cannot for a moment accept. It again involves re-writing sect 37. What justification is there, I ask, for writing into sect 37 any qualification of the kind? The argument that the result is to do in an indirect way what could only be done in a direct way, namely, the making in substance of a new 􀂭 9􀀉 valuation list, I have already dealt with. It may very well be, having regard to the circumstances in which the Postponement Acts were passed, that it never occurred to the Legislature under the first Act that it would be thought worth while and under the second Act that it would be found practicable or desirable in war circumstances to conduct a large scale operation such as this. The Legislature may very well have thought that and not directed its attention to the possibility, which was no doubt at the time a theoretical possibility, that under sect 37 a very large alteration of an existing valuation list might be effected. It may very well be, as I say, that the Legislature did not trouble about that because it appeared to be an unlikely event. Of course, as things have happened, the valuation lists have remained in force for ten years and more and the difference in value in many cases I have no doubt has been very considerable; but there is nothing in sect 37, it seems to me, which prevents the making of proposals based on a general rise in values. The most impossible complications would be involved if you accepted any such view. Supposing, for instance, you had in an area a very large proportion of hereditaments of a particular type, it might be factories or it might be shops, as it was at Worthing. The authorities might take the view that with regard to the thousands of shops in a particular area circumstances had so changed that assessments ought to be put up. They might cover the most important part of the rateable hereditaments in the area. Is it to be said that because the general proposition is applied to all shops and an inspection takes place of each individual shop in order to see whether it is or is not under-valued—and that, of course, has to be done in any case—that for some reason the whole thing is abortive and void because it is conducting a general inspection with a view to a general alteration of assessments with regard to a particular class of hereditament in the rating area? It seems to me that once you get to asking questions of that kind you are leaving the whole thing in complete uncertainty.

There is one more authority which I should mention and that is Murphy Radio Ltd v Welwyn Garden City Rating Authority. In that case Stable J who was a member of the Divisional Court, said this ([1943] 2 All ER 16, at p 19):

‘As regards the second point, if the appellants had been able to say that what was done here was to alter the valuation because of what has been described as some general economical or social change, the result might—I do not say that it would—have been different. Whether what was done here comes within that category or not, in my judgment, is essentially a question of fact. There are no facts found in this case to support the contention that what really happened was that a fresh valuation was being made piecemeal and that what was done was a colourable attempt to make a fresh valuation and not to deal with errors or omissions that were apparent on the face of the valuation when it was made.’

That passage in so far as it suggests the distinction to which I have referred in my opinion cannot be supported. The argument for the appellant naturally led to the larger conclusion that even if proposals were made for every single hereditament in the rating area and were accepted, with the result that every item in the valuation list was altered, nevertheless that would be a perfectly valid operation to be effected under sect 37. What I have said at present, of course, is on the basis that on the facts of this case there is no evidence whatsoever that such a result will ensue. In fact, it cannot ensue in view of what has happened in the past and we are not justified in assuming that it will ensue in the future. But the broader argument is one which really lies at the bottom of the whole of the consideration of this case and I must say a word or two about it. It is said that even if a list was amended to the extent of 100 per cent, the proper description of the resulting document would not be a new valuation list but the original valuation list as amended. I can see no answer to that argument. You start off with the original valuation list. The valuation list is a thing which comes into existence in the manner laid down by the statute and has the legal consequences that the statute provides. If subsequently it is decided to amend that list by altering the assessment the document is still the original list as amended. It is not a new valuation list for the very simple reason that a new valuation list can only be made in a certain way. It is, in my judgment, true to say even in that case that the resulting document is the old valuation list as amended pursuant to 􀂭 10􀀉 sect 37 of the statute. If that were not the case some very remarkable results would follow. For instance, these things are not done in a day or a month or a year. The county valuation authority, whose duty, by-the-by, is to promote uniformity in the principles and practice of valuation, may set about trying to get the assessments put up piecemeal. That is what they have done in this case. They have taken a bit here and a bit there and they have made their proposals estending over years and that process will presumably go on. Now at what point in the history of that process is the law going to say “Stop! You are now reaching the point where you are doing something illegal.” I have already said why I cannot see how illegality comes into it at all however much the percentage of proposals may be. But apparently on the respondent’s argument there is suggested to be some mystical effect in bringing your percentage of alterations up to 100. The idea that directly you reach that point there is something illegal which either affects the last amendment or affects the totality of the amendments which have been previously made seems to me to be a quite impossible result, quite apart from its obvious inconvenience. During the time the process is going on nobody can tell what the result is going to be for the simple reason, as I mentioned, that the county valuation committee itself cannot tell whether, as a result of its valuation of a particular hereditament or a group of hereditaments, it is going to make a proposal at all. Furthermore, nobody can tell whether proposals if made will be accepted. Therefore, you could not say in the course of the operation that any illegality had arisen. Nor could you say as soon as the 100 per cent mark is reached, if it is reached, that some taint of illegality affects it. I cannot see how any such theory could possibly be worked out in practice and I can find no foundation for it in the language of the statute. Quite apart from that instance of a series of proposals spread over a number of years ultimately covering the whole area, there is another example which MacKinnon LJ mentioned in the course of the argument. A proposal can be made by any individual ratepayer. Supposing all the ratepayers in the area formed a ratepayers’ association and decided that they were all over-assessed and proceeded through the association to value the whole of the area and each ratepayer as the result of that valuation decided to make a proposal to have his assessment put down. On what possible ground could it be said that he precluded from availing themselves of the right to make a proposal which sect 37 gives them or would it be the first ratepayer or the ratepayer whose hereditament finally made up the 100 per cent? The thing is simply unworkable if you work it out and it all comes, if I may say so, from the idea that by inserting the words “in substance” you can turn a thing into something which it is not. Once that line of approach is abandoned and an attempt is made to construe the statute and discover what it does mean and what are the realities of the subject-matter with which the section deals, the matter to my mind becomes perfectly clear, reasonable and workable.

I think I have now covered the whole of the ground. I hope I have done justice to the judgment of the Divisional Court and to the arguments presented to us on behalf of the respondent. In my opinion the assessment was perfectly valid, the appeal succeeds and the question raised by the case should be answered accordingly. MACKINNON LJ. I agree, and I have very little that I should like to add. The appellant below, Pratt, was the owner of a house called “West View,” Heacham. That hereditament was entered in the 1934 list as at a value of £14 gross and £8 net. On 17 August 1942, the county valuation committee made a proposal under sect 37 of the 1925 Act to increase those figures to £20 gross and £12 net. On 18 December the assessment committee allowed the proposal and the 1934 list was amended in that respect. Pratt appealed against this amendment on the ground that the action of the county valuation committee in making the proposal as to his hereditament was illegal. On the clear terms of sect 37, manifestly there was no illegality whatever. The Divisional Court, however, has held that it was illegal. For the reasons that have been so fully expressed by Lord Greene MR I am quite unable to understand how that result can be arrived at. It is beyond argument that the proposal of the county valuation committee and its acceptance by the assessment committee and the consequent amendment of the 1934 list are all patently within the powers 􀂭 11􀀉 conferred upon those bodies by sect 37. The special case sets out a mass of evidence as to the general activities of the county valuation committee, and the proposals they had already made as to the hereditaments other than that of Pratt’s and the likelihood of their making proposals as to yet other hereditaments. All that evidence on the appeal of Pratt as to the allowance under sect 37 of proposals affecting his hereditament appears to me to be totally irrelevant and inadmissible. I agree that the appeal succeeds.

TUCKER LJ. This case differs on its facts from several similar cases which have been before the courts because here we have a finding in the agreed statement of facts that the county valuation committee were:

‘… continuing a systematic inspection and revaluation of all the hereditaments in the rating area with a view to the making of further proposals so as to raise the general level of the existing assessments in the said rating area.’

In other cases which have been before the courts, the issue has not been so clearly raised as it is in this because in those cases it was impossible to show what the activities or intentions of the authority concerned were with regard to the whole of the hereditaments in their area. This is a 100 per cent case because the county valuation committee were admittedly engaged in the operation of revaluing every hereditament in the area, with the result that there might be some alteration in the assessment of every hereditament in the area. For that reason, amongst others, I do not think that much assistance is to be obtained from the decisions which have been arrived at in cases where the facts were quite different.

For the reasons stated by Lord Greene MR, I agree that it is quite impossible in this case to say that the county valuation committee were engaged in the preparation of a new valuation list. It is quite clear they were not. The procedure is quite different, and the persons who prepare the valuation when a valuation list is made are different. Furthermore, where a new valuation list is being prepared, it has to go in its entirety before the assessment committee for approval, whereas, in an operation of this kind, it may well be that proposals will not be made with regard to a number of hereditaments so that their assessments may not get before the assessment committee at all. For those and other reasons, it is quite clear that a new valuation list was not in fact being prepared.

The argument by counsel for the respondent, as I understand it, was really based in this way. It is true they may not have been engaged, strictly speaking,

in preparing a new valuation list, but, none the less, they were doing something which is so contrary to the whole intention of the Act of Parliament that it is really illegal. In those other cases where an effort has been made to uphold that view, proceedings have been taken by way of obtaining rules for prohibition or certiorari for the purpose of challenging an operation of this kind in circumstances very different from those in the present case. As I understand the argument it has always been that the intention of the Act was to specify periods when valuation lists would be made, and that if a rating authority, or a county valuation committee, engages in a wholesale operation of this kind it is so contrary to the intention of the Act that it is unlawful and should be prohibited by proper process. I think the answer to that is that it is quite impossible to find anything in the Act which does render such an operation illegal. It is manifestly an operation which is being carried out within the four corners of sect 37, and, although I am inclined to agree, speaking for myself, that I do not think an operation of this kind was ever envisaged when sect 37 of the Act was enacted, none the less it seems to me an operation which is clearly legal and lawful within sect 37, and it is quite impossible to say that by engaging in an operation of this kind, which may result in a 100 per cent alteration of the assessments, the county valuation committee are doing anything unlawful.

The only other observation I desire to make is this: as Lord Greene MR, has pointed out, we have not had argued before us the so-called question of jurisdiction which was raised before the Divisional Court. I, therefore, of course, express no view upon that matter, but I do not desire to be taken in any way as giving any tacit acquiescence in the view that a matter of this kind can be raised by way of objection to a proposal by an individual occupier.

For these reasons, I agree that the question propounded in para 13 of the case should be answered in the affirmative.

Appeal allowed with costs. Order that judgment of Court of Quarter Sessions, consequential on the decision of the Divisional Court, be rescinded. Leave to appeal to the House of Lords.

Solicitors: Vizard, Oldham, Crowder & Cash agents for Mills & Reeve, Norwich (for the appellants); Metcalfe, Copeman & Pattefar (for the respondents).

F Guttman Esq Barrister.

[1946] 1 All ER 13