Clause 24
10:30 am
John Healey (Minister of State (Local Government), Department for Communities and Local Government; Wentworth, Labour)
Welcome back to the Chair, Mr. Atkinson. I also welcome members of the Committee back to the Bill scrutiny proceedings.
I was not certain whether the hon. Member for Northampton, South had finished his intervention when we adjourned last Thursday, but I have checked the record and it appears that he had. I get the hon. Gentleman’s point—I get it every time he makes it—and he will find that there is provision, particularly in the guidance, for encouraging local authorities to deal with businesses that have a particular interest in a project’s success throughout its delivery life, not just during the period leading up to the potential introduction of a business rate supplement that helps to pay for it.
The hon. Member for North Cornwall explained that amendment 20 would require the Secretary of State to give directions that provide refunds to ratepayers in areas where she exercises her power to cancel a BRS, but I think he understands that the Bill already gives the Secretary of State the power to do that. The Bill therefore clearly contains the principle that that may well be the appropriate and right thing for the Secretary of State to do.
My concern about the amendments is that there could be wide-ranging consequences , probably unintended by the hon. Gentleman. The principal risk is that the Secretary of State would find it more difficult to exercise her power to cancel if refunds were required and automatically followed, whatever the financial consequences for the local authority and whatever stage a project and payments under a BRS had reached. The provision is therefore designed to ensure that there are safeguards that acknowledge the concerns that the hon. Gentleman and other right hon. and hon. Members have voiced on behalf of business interests, as well as the practicalities for local authorities and ratepayers.
The Secretary of State has to balance those issues as part of her job and she owes public law duties not only to ratepayers, but to local authorities. If the amendment were made and there were an automatic right to full refunds of all amounts paid, it could prove in practice more difficult to cancel a BRS in a reasonable way.