Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I got the gist. I welcome this Bill and I want it to work. My fear is that without the certainty around potential resets—we do not know when or how often they might happen; we do not know whether they will happen every 10 years; we do not know how they will work in future—there will be huge risk and uncertainty in the system. It is not a question of whether I am satisfied by the provision; it is a question of whether the potential investors, who will determine whether the TIFs work or not, are satisfied. I am trying to convey the sentiment that I have picked up from my discussions with banks, commercial organisations, the British Property Federation and some of the City’s policy experts, who all say, “Look, we require a ring fence; it must be total”. Thus leaving out the reset, which the Government promised they would not do, does not make sense if we want the provisions to work. I hope the Minister will be able to provide the confirmation we need and be able to build it into the Bill. This issue will certainly need to be confirmed at later stages of the Bill.
Amendment 62 is designed to get to the heart of the relative share of the business rate take between central and local government. The figures for projected resource spending on local government under the current spending review demonstrate a significant reduction for next year and the year after that—of nearly half a billion between this year and the next, and of more than £1.5 billion between next year and the year after that in nominal
terms. Alongside that, the projected yield from business rates is set to go up by nearly £1 billion next year and by more than half a billion the year after that. That means that the gap between the projected business rates yield and central Government’s commitment to resource spending on local government is more than £2 billion for next year, and £4 billion for the year after that. There is a significant and growing gap between the business rates yield and spending on local government.
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I accept, as do my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench, the need for the business rates retention system not to undermine the Chancellor’s announced plans for deficit reduction during the current spending review period. However, I do not want central Government to keep helping themselves to a growing yield from business rates after 2014-15, given that the system is designed to return that yield to local government as an incentive for it to support economic development.