Clause 51 - BID proposals
Local Government Bill
10:15 am
Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Shipley, Labour)
New clause 6 would require a billing authority to ensure that ratepayers received all the relevant information needed to make an informed decision, including a method to calculate the amount of their individual levy. Clause 51 empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations concerning the persons who may draw up the BID proposals, the procedures that must be followed when they are drawn up and the matters to be included in them. It renders new clause 6 redundant, because the new clause would allow the Secretary of State to prescribe the information to be given to ratepayers about a BID proposal. That power already exists to a large extent in clause 51(2).
The draft BID guidance that was sent to hon. Members contains information about the requirements to inform ratepayers of the proposals and how to calculate the BID levy. The guidance suggests on page 22 that the BID should give the figure that ratepayers would be expected to pay in addition to their rates and an indication of the way in which it is calculated. On page 23 it says that the BID proposal should also set out the arrangements for publicising the proposals before the vote takes place. In other words, the issue is amply covered in the guidance. Information about the amount that they will pay will go to BID ratepayers before the ballot.
The hon. Member for Cotswold asked how the figure would be calculated and whether it would be too complicated. I do not believe that it is a particularly difficult point, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford said. The figure should not be difficult to calculate. It could be a percentage, a flat rate, or any other system. We do not want to be too prescriptive about it, but if businesses were suspicious about the amount that they had to pay, they would be less likely to vote in favour of the proposal.
The hon. Member for New Forest, West asked who would be involved in drawing up the BID proposals.
Anyone can get involved in establishing a BID. The local authority will need to be a partner, because it will be an important stakeholder in the relationship between the business community and the public sector. That touches on the point made by the hon. Member for Poole. BIDs will have to make sure that the local authority is fully engaged. They will clearly have a strong voice in the dialogue with the local authority.
The guidance elaborates on some of those issues when dealing with the possible virtues of the establishment of a BID. There are no absolute constraints on the choices that a local authority can make during the duration of a BID about its normal functions, but clearly it is accountable to its electorate for its decisions on non-BID issues. Questions about car-parking charges and changes involving one way systems will be part of the normal decision-making processes of local authorities, which are democratically accountable to those who elect them. In that sense, there is a constraint on those local authority decisions. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton, who said that new clause 6 could be interpreted as slightly over-prescriptive. There is ample coverage in the guidance and the Bill, and I hope that new clause 6 will not be pressed.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 51 ordered to stand part of the Bill.