Schedule 1 - Capital finance: parish and community councils and charter trustees
Local Government Bill
3:00 pm
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
We now move on to schedule 1, and that is logical because schedule 1 relates to most of clause 19.
Members of the Committee will see that the provisions to which amendment No. 47 refers relate to temporary borrowings. Under the Bill, local authorities will have to meet
''expenses . . . in respect of the period of account in which the expenses are chargeable''.
That is fairly draconian, and we think that the provision should be more in line with reality. When local authorities make provision for expenses, those expenses should, reasonably, be expected to be received in that period, because all sorts of things can go wrong between them being chargeable and being received, and yet, if anything did, the provision would still have to be made.
Now, I am going to have a bit of fun. I will take hon. Members through amendment No. 47 slowly, because the drafting in paragraph 2(3) is pretty tautological and torturous. My hon. Friend the
Member for Poole looks puzzled; he wonders whether it is torturous and tautological; it is probably is, as torture and tautology are not mutually exclusive.