Business Rate Supplements Bill

I may have more than enough time but in terms of the Long Title, it is not so much for the Government but for the House itself. If the noble Lord will leave that challenge with me, I will certainly think about the scope and the issues that it would raise. The noble Lord has taken us through the attempts made by Nick Raynsford in the other place to amend the Bill. He proposed that there should be scope to ballot property owners in BIDs in areas where a BRS is in place. Creating an additional income stream for the BID from the property owners would provide an offset for occupiers against their liability and it would also overcome the concern of property owners who make voluntary contributions that others "free ride" on the benefits that their contributions bring. We all agree that BIDs are an important complementary policy to give local authorities a range of choice to support economic development. It will come as no surprise to the Committee that we have been working on proposals to address the issue that has been raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, this afternoon, so I am happy to put on the record that we will be tabling amendments on Report. We will certainly be discussing the nature of the amendments with her. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, asked whether it meant that everyone will get to pay less. If owners are to be signed up, they must have an interest in the project, so increasing income to fund more owners and focusing on better projects has some merit. I will have to write to noble Lords to follow through on some of the issues that I am addressing, as there is no time to go into sufficient detail. If the noble Lord will leave it with me, I shall write to him on that as well. Our amendments will propose that when a bid is in place, those proposing a new BID or the body running an existing BID, can choose whether they want to involve property owners. If the BID, body or proposer choose to involve property owners, they can ballot them. We intend that there should be flexibility so that the BID, body or proposer should be able to decide whether property owners should be balloted at the same time as, and as part of the ballot of, other ratepayers, or to hold two separate ballots. Clearly, those are issues that we need to discuss and get right. The level of the property owner BID levy will be set out in the BID proposal. Where the purpose of the property owner BID is to offset the BRS liability of those also liable for a ratepayer BID, the extent of the offset will be as specified in the BID proposal. We will, wherever possible, replicate for property owners the arrangements that currently exist for ratepayer BIDs. However, when certain details are specific to property owner BIDs, we propose to deal with these in regulations. I shall write to noble Lords following up this debate, as I am leaving out quite a lot of detail due to our having three more groups with which to deal. When I write, I shall certainly address some of those issues and I shall also give the Government’s view on the matters raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, which she addressed to the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine. I hope that with that rather brief summary, noble Lords will be content.