Business Rate Supplements Bill

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is right; he has more experience of BIDs than I do. There are many examples of such good practice, but I think that he would concede that what I am saying is possible. I am not saying that it would be a typical experience; I am sure that there will still be many good BIDs and that the business communities will stay fully engaged in many places, but he should not underestimate how much stuffing is being knocked out of the business community by the day-to-day pressures on cash flow, the collapse of turnover and the difficulty in getting access to banking facilities. That is sometimes going to make even the best of intentions among the business community difficult to carry through. Businesses simply will not have the time to do these things, let alone the cash, or the intellectual self-confidence, given the recent very destructive few months, which have hit them badly. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, who is leading for us on this issue, I am not ill-disposed to what the right hon. Gentleman is trying to do. If I felt that the words could mirror exactly what he wished to achieve, and if there were a cap on the ability to take extra money out of the community, I would be much more in favour of the proposal. I would like to hear the Minister's response, to see whether it might be possible to find a way forward. I hope that he will equally understand my concern—alongside those of the right hon. Gentleman—that at this juncture, above all, the main aim of the House should be not to take more money off the business community.