Clause 22
Business Rate Supplements Bill
9:45 am
Brian Binley (Northampton South, Conservative)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Dean. I have some concerns about the clause. I preface my remarks by saying that I am very worried about giving opportunity to any Government body to grab more money than they need to have for a given project. I have already mentioned that parking charges are now being used to supplement local government revenue incomes, rather than to provide a service to local communities. I am concerned that the same sort of thinking, in the less scrupulous of our councils, might take place in this respect, too.
I have two concerns on which I seek clarification, the first of which is about the difference in billing. Subsection (1) makes it clear that the billing authority has the ability to recover moneys for administrative costs from the moneys collected through the BRS project. However, the clause then states that the authority can do that only if the information is given prior to the beginning of the financial year, and it seems from the impact assessment that when billing is undertaken as a separate exercise, the cost of collection will be met from the upper-tier authority’s own resources. So, if there is good notice for collection to be made as part of the normal collection of rates, it is the billing authority’s right to take those costs out before it hands the money back to the levying authority. If, however, the levying authority does not ask for a rate until after the beginning of the financial year, it seems that that cost falls on the upper-tier authority’s own revenue budget. Therein lie the sort of caveats that concern me—such as the ability to raise money that is not properly controlled and not transparently projected, but which adds to local authorities’ income streams.
First, will the Minister clear up the issue of those two ways of charging for the collection process? Secondly, how will we be assured, bearing it in mind that money might be coming from the general revenue budget of a given levying authority, that that money will be properly and transparently accounted for, so that people can have faith that money is not being leaked out into other budget areas for purposes not directly ascribed by the Bill?