Part of Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:15 pm on 27 January 2005.
Mr Matthew Green
Shadow Minister, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Local Government & the Regions, Young People, Non-Departmental & Cross-Departmental Responsibilities
4:15,
27 January 2005
I have a couple of brief questions for the Minister. Clause 97(2)(b), says that regulations may include provision
''to pay sums in respect of those amounts to another person (including the appropriate person)'', and the appropriate person would obviously be the Secretary of State or the Welsh Assembly. However, what is the real intention of the paragraph? Is it that the Minister will ensure that a percentage of receipts by lower-tier authorities is carved off and taken back to central Government? That would be my immediate reading of it. The provision is general and talks of paying
''those amounts to another person (including the appropriate person)'', so I wonder who those other persons, aside from the Secretary of State or the Welsh Assembly, are.
The second question relates to subsection (2) (d), which is
''to adopt such accounting arrangements in respect of those amounts as may be specified in the regulations.''
My concern there is that, since we would like parish and town councils to be as proactive as possible, high accounting costs—as the Minister will be aware—can disproportionately affect lower-tier authorities, whose budgets are relatively small. It is something they have complained about in the past.
The Minister, in a previous debate, used an example of a group of quite small parishes clubbing together to run something similar. Clearly, if the accounting procedures are over-onerous and over-expensive it would put them off doing that. I seek assurance that those procedures will be as light touch as possible.
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