Business Rate Supplements Bill

I am sorry if the hon. Lady did not entirely follow what I said earlier. As I explained, the BID legislation provides for renewal ballots every five years, which means that a BID must submit its proposal to the business rate payers who contribute to it every time it seeks a renewal of its status. Unlike the BRS for Crossrail, which relates to a single, albeit very large, project, BID schemes usually involve a variety of different arrangements. A scheme may be intended to improve security, perhaps by providing additional policing to enhance shoppers' safety in a retail area. It may involve environmental improvements to make an area more attractive to visitors, or transport improvements to make it more accessible. It may involve promotional work to attract people who would otherwise not be aware of what was available in a shopping centre. It is entirely up to the BID body itself to decide on its programme. However, that programme must be set out in advance of the first ballot, and when it is due for renewal the BID will be required to set out its programme for the following year. There is a well-established procedure enabling the parties invited to contribute to BIDs to know what they would be getting, and to say either yes or no to it in a ballot. Although BIDs have generally been successful and are widely seen as such throughout the country, and although the improvements to the local economy which they support are rather different from those supported by the BRS—which, in the case of London, will support the hugely important Crossrail scheme—there is a real risk that, following the introduction of BRSs, several BIDs that are due to be subjected to renewal ballots in the next two years will not survive. That, in my view, would be a very unfortunate consequence. The purpose of my new clause is to find a solution that does not pit BIDs against BRSs, or put either at risk. The new clause addresses the problem by returning to an issue that has been debated long and hard since BIDs were first introduced: the contribution that might be made by property owners in bid areas to support activity from which they stand to benefit considerably. The BID model was originally developed in north America, where the contributions from the business side come from property owners rather than occupiers. In adapting the model to United Kingdom circumstances, in which business rates are levied on occupiers, we concluded that the BID levy should also apply to occupiers. However strong the argument was for imposing the levy on landowners—and we received forceful representations from many quarters, including property owners who felt that that was right and equitable—it would have required the establishment of a wholly new register of commercial property ownership throughout the country so that property owners could be balloted in the first place and the local authority could subsequently impose the levy, assuming that there was a positive vote. Not only would that have imposed significant cost burdens on local authorities, but it would have been a major bureaucratic exercise and, crucially, delayed the implementation of the BID scheme. At the time, there was a real appetite among the business community, town centre managers and many others to get a move on with BIDs to ensure that the benefits that many saw would come from the establishment of BIDs could be achieved.