Business Rate Supplements Bill

I shall also speak to Amendments 24 and 26 to 31. Before I do so and to ensure that no one spends time following up the point I made on the powers of regional development agencies, let me "fess up". The provision I was thinking of says that: ""A regional development agency may only provide housing by acquiring existing housing accommodation and making it available on a temporary basis for purposes incidental to its purposes"." That is probably a draw, because it makes my point that housing is relative to economic development, but I withdraw the suggestion that this might be different because an RDA has only very limited powers to provide housing and cannot actually build. Amendment 6 would provide that the sums raised by BRS, ""may be used for capital and revenue expenditure or either"." I have tabled this amendment for clarification and, I hope, to hear from the Minister her confirmation that my understanding of the position as expressed in this amendment is correct. Amendment 24, to Schedule 1, would include in the prospectus: ""The authority’s estimate of the costs of maintaining and operating the project and how they are to be funded"." It is not clear that paragraph 4 covering an, ""authority’s estimate of the total cost"," extends to these matters. I think it probably should, but again I seek to understand the position more fully. Maintenance is often overlooked when a capital project is being constructed or not thought through in sufficient detail. Ratepayers are entitled to know about maintenance and operation in order to judge the project and to assess how realistic is the estimate given by the levying authority. The other amendments are probing in nature and all express future categories of expenditure. For example, Amendment 31 probes in paragraph 11 the words, ""expenditure incurred and work undertaken"," which includes what will be undertaken in the future on the project. Perhaps more specifically, Amendment 29 is to paragraph 8(c), which refers to the "principal terms" on which money is loaned— ""in particular, the rates of interest"." We all know that rates of interest can go up as well as down. I am putting quite a heavy burden on a local authority to see into the future, but you cannot budget for the sort of projects which might fall within these categories without thinking through the "what ifs". So I have referred to, ""the anticipated terms or budgeted interest"." Again, the intention is to assist ratepayers in assessing the reality test applied to the prospectus. I believe that the prospectus is an immensely important document, which it will be quite hard to construct. I want to be reassured about its scope. I beg to move.