Business Rate Supplements Bill
12:00 pm
John Healey: To be honest, I find the logic of some of the evidence that we have heard from business organisations inconsistent and mixed up. We have heard, for instance, that the British Chambers of Commerce is concerned about a BRS without a ballot, yet the director general confirmed to this Committee that it accepted the 30 per cent. threshold. He acknowledged that
“in a number of parts of the country...there is a need for more local determination and...for the ability to raise additional revenue from the business community”.——[Official Report, Business Rate Supplements Public Bill Committee, 20 January 2009; c. 20, Q85.]
The BRS will put in place the potential for local authorities—through discussion and required consultation, and in some cases ballots, of their business community—to use that power for the interests and the economic long-term benefit of their area, which seems entirely right to me.