Business Rate Supplements Bill

My hon. Friends and I are concerned about the programme motion because, although the Bill is insubstantial in volume, it could have an enormous impact on businesses in the United Kingdom. It could impose a burden of up to £600 million a year on businesses, even though business rates have already increased by 5 per cent. this year and there is a prospect of a further revaluation using a multiplier that is now out of date in the light of the changed economic circumstances. Although the Bill has been through a careful and constructive Committee stage, it raises a number of technical issues, and I notice that two significant new clauses have been tabled for discussion today—one by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and the other by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford). They both raise issues that deserve serious consideration. In fairness, during the course of the Bill's consideration in Committee, the Minister said that he would look at some of those issues, in particular the question of the property owner levy in business improvement districts, which is the subject of the new clause tabled by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, and the issue of business's involvement in the delivery and oversight of the business rate supplements project, which I and other hon. Members raised. We have not yet received an inkling of the Government's thinking on those matters, although I am sure that it will emerge in the debate today. However, given that the House is not overburdened with business at the moment, it might have been better to devise a programme motion that allowed for more reflection on those issues, so that we could consider whether, if my hon. Friends and I are unsuccessful in winning our principal point of opposition to the Bill, we could at least do more to ameliorate any unforeseen and perverse impacts on certain sectors of the business community. For that reason, we shall seek to oppose the programme motion.