Business Rate Supplements Bill

I was not going to speak this afternoon; in fact I was slightly apprehensive about having to speak this afternoon. The last time we were in Grand Committee, the helicopters were going overhead the whole time, and it was extremely difficult to hear. It must have been very difficult for Hansard to have got down all our words accurately. If the Committee remembers, last time in Grand Committee, I was talking about the dualling of the A11, and I said that that would be of benefit to those businesses around the A11. I went on to say that it would probably be of little benefit of King’s Lynn and then I said—I will have to say this clearly—"and market towns around King’s Lynn like Downham Market, Swaffham", and I went on to list a whole raft of towns. Imagine, to my horror, when I read Hansard the next day, and it said: ""I mentioned King’s Lynn. There are lots of down-market King’s Lynns, such as Swaffham, Dereham, Fakenham".—[Official Report, 11/5/09; col. GC328.]" It listed a whole raft of towns. It was not my intention to say that at all. They say when you are in a hole, stop digging; but it is worth my while getting up this afternoon to dig a little bit further to try to put the record straight, because everyone will know that I am a strong supporter of all things Norfolk. I will say a few things about the amendment. It imposes a duty on the levying authority to consult on the proposal in an initial prospectus and to publish the results of that consultation. However, the consultation can be ignored; we have been there before in earlier debates. Providing the business rate supplement is below 33 per cent of the total cost of the production of the project, the levying authority can press on regardless. This ties in with the up-market King’s Lynn point that I made earlier. Of course, it can benefit all those businesses around and along the A11, but it will have no benefit to those other areas in the north-west of Norfolk. They can be consulted on, but the levying authority can completely ignore that consultation. This ties in with something else that I tried to bring up during our previous day in Grand Committee. I suggested that it would be better if a local authority asked the business community what infrastructure projects it would like most, and then one might be able to get a consensus. The consultation process would probably be much more favourable if it were done by asking the business community what projects it wanted, rather than the infrastructure levy saying, "This is the project that we are going to do. What do you think about it?".