Non-Domestic Rating Act 2023

Territorial extent and application

41. Section 18 sets out the territorial extent of the Act, that is the jurisdictions which the Act forms part of the law of. The extent of an Act can be different from its application. Application is about where an Act produces a practical effect.
42. Business rates policy is fully devolved. A common legal framework for business rates, in the form of the 1988 Act, extends to England and Wales. A number of provisions apply to Wales as well as England at the request of the Welsh Government. Provisions applying to Wales as well as England are detailed throughout these notes but are, in summary:
    1. The introduction of new improvement and heat networks reliefs, the removal of obsolete reliefs and introduction of charitable rate relief on the central rating list.
    2. Provision for disclosure of information held by valuation officers to ratepayers.
    3. The removal of timing constraints on the setting of the multipliers, and the correction of an anomaly in the rules concerning the rounding of the multiplier.
    4. Provisions relating to the digitalisation of business rates, including the requirement on ratepayers to provide a taxpayer reference number to HMRC.
    5. Provision for the sharing of data by the VOA in England and Wales with valuation officials in Northern Ireland.
43. There is a convention that Westminster will not normally legislate with regard to matters that are within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru or the Northern Ireland Assembly without the consent of the legislature concerned.
44. Section 11 extends to Northern Ireland as it makes provision in relation to the use by rating officials in Northern Ireland of data shared by the VOA in England and Wales. A legislative consent motion from the Northern Ireland Assembly was not required for this measure.
45. See the table in Annex A for a summary of the position regarding territorial extent and application in the United Kingdom.