My Lords, it comes to this, it seems to me: you have a system which takes no account of levies, you change that system weeks before the statutory date for the budget so that the levy in that year can be taken into account in settling a referendum limit for the following year—and yet that is not considered retrospective. I seem to speak a different language from the Minister and the Government, and the dictionary speaks a different language as well. It is simply a semantic quibble to say that it is not retrospective.
It is a complicated matter for authorities. The noble Baroness referred to the city deal in West Yorkshire. This was entered into months before the budget. The Minister, with respect, rather airily dismisses the impact of the potential application of the principle in terms of the referendum limit. She quoted Bradford. Leeds is the largest authority in the area. It will gradually build up a contribution until it reaches £15.5 million. That represents a council tax increase of 0.2%, then 1% in 2015-16 and 0.7% per annum right up to 2022-23; 0.7% is a third of the referendum increase threshold. That is quite a substantial chunk, given the pressures that we all know are—and will continue to be—visited on local authorities, as envisaged by the LGA. The Minister’s successor by one or two as leader of Kensington and Chelsea is, of course, the LGA’s chair. As a percentage it does not sound large, but as a percentage of what is committed by way of an increase, it is very large; and that is in the case of a group of authorities of roughly comparable size, function and budget.
It gets worse than that if, for example, one looks at the position of the Lee Valley Park area. This runs along the Lee Valley, through east London and the Hertfordshire-Essex border. It gets its money from 32 London boroughs, the Corporation of London—which will probably not miss a few bob here or there—Hertfordshire County Council, Essex County Council and Thurrock unitary authority. So there is a vast number of authorities there, not all of which are represented on the board.
In fact, the riparian authorities are limited to Essex, Hertfordshire and other councils and only one member from six of the London boroughs—whereas the total cost is met by 32 London boroughs. Two of their representatives sitting in this Chamber tonight can confirm that. So here is a levying body which individual authorities cannot really influence, yet what it does will have an impact on their referendum.
That is objectionable in principle, but I urge the Government to realise, particularly in relation to the levies that accrue as a result of a deal entered into by the Government—the city deal proposal—that a transitional arrangement would be desirable. I hope that the Government will revisit that. They may not need legislation to do it—I would not imagine that they would—but I hope that they will look at this again. It seems unfair that an arrangement with the Government could precipitate difficulties of that kind. However, in the light of tonight’s debate, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.