My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I shall try to deal with one or two specific questions at the end of my remarks. I shall lay out the purpose behind Clause 39 and pick up some of the questions as I go along.
Clause 39 amends the calculation that authorities must make each year to determine whether their council tax increase is excessive and therefore requires the approval of local people in a referendum. It changes the definition of excessiveness from an amount that excludes levies to one including levies. It will ensure that people get the final say over an excessive increase in the total council tax charged by an authority. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, properly drew attention to the fact that precepts are already part of the local government charge. Currently, the excessiveness calculation is based on the relevant basic amount of council tax, defined so as to exclude changes in levies raised on an authority by levying bodies. The level of levies varies in different areas, but can make up more than 50% of an authority’s council tax requirement. This year, many council tax payers have seen their total bill increase by a higher percentage than they might have expected due to the impact of levies, with the overall increase appearing to be above the referendum threshold set by the Secretary of State and approved by the other place.
In short, a levy is a demand for payment by a levying body on a local authority. A large number of organisations and bodies have historically been granted the power to issue levies. Some of these are relatively small organisations but others are much larger. We have discussed more recent creations such as integrated transport authorities and joint waste disposal bodies, which carry out substantial functions across cities or regions.
Combined authorities can bring together a number of others to pool their resources and make savings, removing duplication and giving them an opportunity to make sure that the levy is not as much as it would otherwise be. However, we are clear that levying bodies are part of the local government landscape; they are funded to varying degrees by local council tax payers. We discussed the levies briefly. They were removed from the provisions of the Localism Bill, and it is partly an attempt now to exempt certain types of expenditure from the excessiveness calculation, such as that which has been approved by a local referendum. I have missed a page and shall go back.
6.15 pm