Business Rate Supplements Bill
12:00 pm
David Frost: My point is that there is an understanding that improvement in infrastructure is needed at local level; the business community’s concern is that there does not seem to be a coherent strategy on how that money should be raised. Government Departments seem to be fishing around for a way of doing that, whether it be congestion charging, a workplace car parking levy, a business rate supplement or an accelerated development zone. There seems to be a whole range of initiatives here, with no real thought being given to what we are trying to do and what the single strand is by which we should seek to raise that money. The business community is worried that we will simply get a series of layering on. So, for example, you would raise the money for a business rate supplement, and two years down the track the next idea would be a business improvement district and then a workplace car parking levy and perhaps even congestion charging after that. There is a very real fear that business is simply seen as a cash cow, without these programmes having a strategic idea behind them.