My Lords, this amendment—if it was passed— requires the Government to report to Parliament annually, within two months of the end of the financial year, on what money has been made available to local authorities to meet the costs of the transition to the new register which will be under IER, and what safeguards have been put in place to make sure that the money has been spent on the specified task. I do not think it would be properly regarded as ring-fenced money but it would mean that the Government would be identifying the amounts of money that they expected to be seen spent on the transition and then there would be a report back afterwards to indicate what had happened to that money.
This is important because I think everybody in the House, and certainly in the other place, is aware of the importance of IER being made to work. I think most people would accept that whether IER works properly or is introduced in a way that does not leave too many
people off the register will depend to some extent on the resources that are made available by central government to local authorities to ensure that happens. We know local authorities are pressed in a whole variety of ways at the moment because of the current economic position. I think it is sensible to try to protect the position that at least there is a requirement to report on both the money envisaged and then what happened to it. I beg to move.