Clause 10
Business Rate Supplements Bill
4:45 pm
John Healey (Minister of State (Local Government), Department for Communities and Local Government; Wentworth, Labour)
We have come to an important part of the Bill, which is the provision that we are creating in the legislation framework for levying authorities to make variations to the business rate supplement when circumstances or conditions require them to do so. In framing this part of the Bill, we aim to strike the balance between allowing the local authority, or levying authority, to respond to the particular demands of the economic development project and the funding that it may require while at the same time giving the businesses that may be affected and may be contributing through a BRS a degree of certainty and a safeguard to allay their potential concerns. In framing the provisions in clause 12, Committee Members will see that we have taken the same approach as we have taken in the rest of the Bill.
It is clearly important for local authorities to have some flexibility to deal with changing circumstances. Subsection (1) allows a limited variation, provided that the possibility of the variation and the circumstances in which it is made are set out in the BRS prospectus; and—this is referred to in subsection (12)—that the variation will not increase the number of people liable to pay the supplement. This is designed to provide some flexibility to ensure that projects that are funded by a BRS can maintain momentum in the event of a change in their economic circumstances or other circumstances.
Let me move on to the safeguards or reassurances to business. Subsection (2) is designed to protect businesses from any unexpected changes in the supplement arrangements. It provides that the levying authority cannot without due consultation make significant changes that were not foreseen at the outset of the process and therefore not consulted on or, in some cases, voted on at the outset. If the authority wants to vary a BRS in a way that was not foreseen and set out in the original prospectus, it will need to consult on its revised plans. Subsection (2) requires the authority to undertake a number of steps: to publish a document setting out the proposed variation; to consult on those proposals; to hold a ballot in the cases in which the variation will mean that the supplement supports more than one third of the project cost or in which there was a ballot on the original proposal; and to publish a revised prospectus setting out the new arrangements, once the variation has been agreed.