Clause 50 - Administration of BID levy etc
Local Government Bill
9:30 am
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
I apologise to my hon. Friend if, by speaking, I slightly contradict him, but I do not believe that we have exhausted one or two issues.
As we go through the debate, my feelings are mixed as to whether I congratulate the Government on producing a proposal, however relatively ill formed, that they hope will be flexible and will apply in different circumstances that are difficult to foresee, or ask them more detailed questions which, in the nature of things, they will find it difficult to answer.
First, the money collected by a BID will be retained by the local authority, but presumably in a form of trusteeship, on behalf of those who are designated in the BID framework and have the authority to spend the money. I am sure that the Under-Secretary will correct me if I am wrong, but that body might be a chamber of commerce, a local branch, a town traders' association or something of that kind. It might be a town council. In the absence of a town council, it might be a form of local partnership. I assume that, as long as the body is set out in the BID arrangements, that will be satisfactory. I see the Minister nodding. I see the Under-Secretary nodding. Will the money be subject to district audit procedures, or would there be separate auditing requirements for the money, which, although held by the authority, is the property of another group?
The Minister is sanguine about people's budgeting arrangements. He seems to think it unlikely that the circumstances that my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold described—a BID running out of money halfway through—would arise.
I have to tell the Minister that people's capacity to get budgets wrong is a wonder to behold. My local authority, for example, budgeted to run a pop concert at a cost of £60,000 and was surprised to find that it cost £380,000, which is the equivalent of an £8 per household levy on the ratepayers of the Isle of Wight. Even with high quality professional financial advice, local government gets things wrong. We therefore need to push the Minister a little further on what happens if the BID proposals do not work. If a local authority has collected the money there will be an income stream. If it finds out halfway through that it will need much more money, it will have either to alter its income stream or to abandon the proposal because it simply does not work.