Localism Bill

My Lords, this amendment takes us back to the point that we touched on earlier this evening: whether circumstances might arise where currently the Secretary of State can determine whether an authority will be unable to discharge its functions in an effective manner or will be unable to meet its financial obligations unless it has a so-termed excessive council tax increase. Our amendment would bring to that process the right to seek an independent assessment of those same criteria, so that there is a process, other than, or in addition to, the Secretary of State’s own engagement with that decision. That may, in part, provide a route for dealing with the issue that we discussed earlier concerning one-off events arising for local authorities. My understanding is that these tests are to be judged in the extreme—only if there is a cataclysmic situation and not one somewhere along the spectrum before that. I do not think that that is what the wording actually says or what the natural meaning would be. However, I believe that an authority should have a right to an independent assessment when it is heading towards situations which are very serious for it and which, without an excessive council tax increase, it could not see its way through.