Business Rate Supplements Bill
12:00 pm
Bob Neill (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Bromley and Chislehurst, Conservative)
I have one final point I should like to raise. I feel that I am about to suffer the same senior moment that one of our colleagues had in the statutory instrument Committee yesterday. It is about to come back to me as I waffle my way through it. With luck, perhaps you could just help me on this last point, Minister.
Is there not a danger that, in the current circumstances, what the measure really represents is a shift in the burden of funding infrastructure improvements from the Treasury to local businesses, when you look at this power being coupled with the mainstreaming or the reduction in the amount of monies available under the local authorities business growth incentive scheme? If we are being generally localist, should we not also give local authorities a power to place a discount on the business rates as well as raise a supplement?