Clause 26 - Minimum reserves
Local Government Bill
4:15 pm
Mr John Pugh (Southport, Liberal Democrat)
Exactly so. The clause seems to be something dreamt up by a ministerial mind for which there is no basis in the realities of finance.
If the Minister wishes to set a rule about the minimum reserves, why is there no rule on maximum reserves. What would we do about a particularly anal public authority that collected public money and did absolutely nothing with it. If that is licit, it is nonsense. The Minister seems, however, not to be bothered about that, worrying instead about minimum reserves. If he wants to create a power as heavy-handed as this one, he needs to demonstrate that there is a real problem. Yet there is no such problem high on the agenda in the local authority world.