Business Rate Supplements Bill

I hope that I can satisfy the noble Baroness on this point. Amendment 59 would enable billing authorities to be able to recover the costs that they incur in preparing for the collection and recovery of BRS. Amendment 60 would remove the power for the Secretary of State to set a cap on the amount to be paid by levying authorities. We have issued the consultation paper with our proposals for secondary legislation that will be needed to enable BRS to be levied. The consultation paper covers the arrangements for the collection and enforcement of BRS, including the costs of collection. It also floats different options for calculating the costs of collection. It is right that billing authorities should be able to cover the legitimate costs that they incur in collecting and enforcing payment of BRS; we are agreed on that. But it is equally important that such costs should be proportionate to the amount of BRS collected. Those businesses that will be paying the supplement will accept that there are administrative overheads associated with any project; but those costs must be reasonable. Sums must not be diverted away from the project into collection costs. That is why we have framed the powers in Clause 22 in the way we have. It means that there is provision for reimbursing billing authorities their legitimate costs, which should reassure business. The consultation document invites views on whether these costs should be a fixed percentage of the annual total amount of BRS to be collected, or whether this should be a fixed amount. A third option is whether this is something that should be agreed locally between the levying authority and the billing authority, subject to an upper limit to provide reassurance for business. The three-month consultation period will give stakeholders the opportunity to express their views on these options or to come forward with alternative ways of addressing this issue or, indeed, any of the proposed arrangements for administering BRS. I reassure the noble Baroness that our intention, subject to the outcome of the consultation, is that a billing authority should be able to recover the reasonable costs incurred in preparing for, collecting and enforcing BRS. I hope, with that on the record and with the consultation period about to begin, that the noble Baroness can rest assured that a good solution will be found.