Clause 18
Business Rate Supplements Bill
9:45 am
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall, Liberal Democrat)
I was interested to hear what the Under-Secretary said about what would be expected of levying authorities. However, the concern is that what is expected and what is delivered may be two different things. The real reason lies in what he said about Crossrail in his closing remarks. Once again we have hit on an issue where the Bill has been drafted to meet the Crossrail timetable but will have effects elsewhere across the country, which is a grave concern.
The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst referred to issues with precepting authorities. In my constituency there is a five-member parish council where there was a dispute between two members and the other three. The three resigned, making the parish council inquorate and no other people could be found to serve with the two who remained. There was a problem in setting a precept for that year, and this was quite a controversial time in the parish. In the end, we managed by public meeting to find some people willing to stand and resolved the situation. I make that as an aside about the frustrations that billing authorities can experience when dealing with other authorities.
I have not heard a persuasive argument from the Under-Secretary as to why we could not push the deadline back a bit further; we are talking about potential applications of this Bill much wider than Crossrail. I am concerned that, for example, where a ballot is to be held, if the deadline for having all the regulations in place is the beginning of March, that could allow extra leeway for the ballot to take place later. If a deadline is pushed later there is sometimes less impetus—less momentum to get things tied up and dealt with earlier.
I am not going to press this amendment to the vote because I think we have made the point, but I hope that the Government will clearly signal their intention in any reflections and advice they offer to local authorities as to how a prospectus should be put together. Every effort must be made to give as early an indication as possible to the billing authority as to what is proposed and what is likely to occur, so that we do not get the situation where a billing authority has to struggle to deliver things on time for the BRS to be imposed in the financial year.