Clause 44 - joint arrangments
Local Government Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Desmond Swayne (New Forest West, Conservative)
Well, I do actually, because in addressing clause 43 the Minister failed to answer the question about the involvement of the local authority, about which I asked him specifically. That is as pertinent a question under clause 44 as it was under clause 43. He also did not answer the question that I put to him about how two local authorities would fit into this mechanism and about the problem of accountability to their electors. The key issue crystallised by clause 44 concerns the impact that the local authority will have on the ongoing BID project. We shall come to the local authority's involvement in the collection of revenues and the voting for the BID's establishment, but we are unclear about how the local authority will fit into the ongoing management of the BID over the five-year cycle. That will be exacerbated
by two authorities having to work together in the process. I hope that the Under-Secretary will be a little more forthcoming in the stand part debate on clause 44 than he was in the clause 43 stand part debate, when he avoided mentioning it altogether.