Local Government Finance Bill

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, that is highly unlikely. In fact, I cannot conceive of such a situation—for this reason, which he really ought to know if he has studied the topic. Fire authorities are in the business rates retention scheme because about one third of them are county council authorities. If they were outside the business rate retention scheme, we would have the perverse situation in which one third of all fire authorities—county council fire authorities, in effect—were nevertheless funded within business rates retention, while the remaining ones, including the metropolitan and other combined or stand-alone fire authorities, were funded by a wholly separate means. It is therefore logical to include them all within the same scheme.