2The general rate.
(1)Every rating authority shall from time to time in exercise of their powers under section 1(2) of this Act make such rates as will be sufficient to provide for such part of the total estimated expenditure to be incurred by the authority during the period in respect of which the rate is made as is not to be met by other means or by means of excepted rates, including in that expenditure any sums payable to any other authority under precepts issued by that other authority, together with such additional amount as is in the opinion of the rating authority required to cover expenditure previously incurred, or to meet' contingencies, or to defray any expenditure which may fall to be defrayed before the date on which the moneys to be received in respect of the next subsequent rate made under this subsection will become available.
(2)Where a rural district council apprehend that a precept will be issued to the council to meet expenses of the council of a borough included in the rural district or of a parish council or parish meeting, being expenses which will be required to be defrayed out of the proceeds of a rate for any rate period, but at the time when the rural district council propose to make a rate the precept has not been issued, the council may estimate for what amount the precept will be issued and make the rate by reference to the estimate, and shall in a subsequent rate period make any necessary adjustment by increasing or decreasing, as the case may require, the amount to be levied in the borough or parish as an additional item of the rate.
(3)Any rate made by a rating authority under subsection (1) of this section shall be made and levied as a single consolidated rate for the whole of their rating area which shall be termed " the general rate " and be in lieu of any other rates such as are mentioned in section 1(2) of this Act which that authority have power to make other than excepted rates.
(4)Subject to the provisions of this Act, the general rate for any rating area—
(a)shall be a rate at a uniform amount per pound on the rateable value of each hereditament in that area, except that where any amount is, by virtue of any precept or otherwise, chargeable separately on part only of a rating area, the rating authority shall levy that amount on that part of the area together with, and as an additional item of, the general rate;
(b)shall be made and levied in accordance with the valuation list in force for the time being, except that, where a new valuation list is to come into force for that area, a rate for the year, or any part of the year, beginning with the day on which the new list is to come into force shall be made, and applied in relation to particular hereditaments, by reference to that new list.
(5)Subsections (3) and (4)(a) of this section shall not apply to the City of London and subsections (1), (3) and (4)(a) of this section shall not apply to the Temples; but, subject to any express provision to the contrary effect, any other provision of this Act with respect to the general rate shall—
(a)in its application to the City of London, apply also in relation to the poor rate, and
(b)in its application to the Temples, apply in relation to any rate in the nature of a general rate levied in the Inner Temple or the Middle Temple, as the case may be,
as it applies in relation to the general rate.