Business Rate Supplements Bill

My hon. Friend is right. He has made the same point at several stages during the Bill's progress. However, the Bill builds on a strong existing working relationship between local authorities and local businesses. My hon. Friend may recall that during one of the evidence sessions the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, David Frost, told us that""relationships between chambers of commerce and local authorities are extraordinarily strong"." As my hon. Friend says, the Bill provides an opportunity for authorities and businesses to plan major projects for the future. Such projects can contribute to the economic recovery and, more important, to the future long-term growth of areas, but it will take time for them to develop. If we are to channel investment to support the upturn and the success that will follow it, we need to make preparations now. Difficult as it is for the House to deal with the Bill at this time, it is part of the foundation for that upturn. At each stage of the Bill, we have discussed the interaction between business rate supplements and business improvement districts, and at each stage concern has been expressed about business improvement districts. I am glad to say that our debates have confirmed that there is now strong cross-party support for BIDs, recognition of their success and a cross-party desire to protect them, where that is possible. We will no doubt return in the other place, following the debate on new clause 2 and the further work that I intend to ensure that we undertake, to the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford). Concerns have been expressed on behalf of business and by business. I understand those, but the BRS will not come out of the blue for any business in any area. Local authorities will work with their local businesses to create projects and to examine whether the BRS may form part of the funding for those. As I have said, that will build on the strong relationships between local authorities and local businesses. We have been urged to go further in the Bill not just by those who gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee, but by the all-party Select Committee on Communities and Local Government and the all-party Conservative-led Local Government Association. They have argued for an increase in the threshold for the business rate supplement; for discretion for local authorities as to whether and when to have ballots on the introduction of a BRS; and for freedom to use BRS funding for purposes other than the economic development of the local area.