Clause 18
Business Rate Supplements Bill
Public Bill Committees, 29 January 2009, 9:30 am
Bob Neill (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Bromley & Chislehurst, Conservative)
I apologise for not having welcomed you to the Chair earlier, Mrs. Dean, on behalf of myself and my hon. Friends. We are delighted to see you, as are all the other members of the Committee.
I have much sympathy with the amendment. It may be that March is used because it is a standard date in local government legislation. I served on a London borough council, which is a billing authority, for a number of years and talked to many others who are on billing authorities. I remember, therefore, the frustrations one often had when there was a precepting authority that went right up to the deadline in fixing its precept. That caused difficulty for the second-tier authorities in working out their budgets. The circumstance here is similar; putting back the deadline would make it easier for people to plan and get things in order.