My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for their contributions and I shall try to deal with the points raised. I am flying solo at the moment so one or two caveats may be entered here and there.
On the technical issue raised by the noble Baroness and echoed by the noble Lord about the nature of some of the schedules with the figures and letters set out in them which make Einstein look rather straightforward, perhaps I may get back to them to try to explain how they work.
I shall take up the point made by the noble Baroness about Leeds City Council. I have checked the schedule where it is referred to simply as “Leeds”, but I very much take the point she made about the fierce local loyalty in Kirklees and I readily understand the point she is making.
I gently disagree with the noble Baroness on fiscal devolution. This is significant fiscal devolution. Obviously, at the end of the day there have to be adjustments, which I think we all support. Without a smoothing mechanism, so that rich authorities contribute towards poorer authorities, the system would break down as being totally unfair. I understand the point that she makes, but I think that this is significant fiscal devolution.
Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness raised the fair funding review. In a sense, we have twin-track processes, both of which kick in in 2021. Significant work is being done on the fair funding review. I say to
the noble Lord, without anticipating precisely what the review will show, which of course I cannot do, that I would be amazed if everywhere got a larger sum of money. That is not how it will work. I would have thought that some will get a lesser sum of money, while others will get more. The essence of it is that it will be fair.
The noble Lord asked how many applicants there were to be pilot authority areas. Twenty-six made an application. We have sought to explain to those authorities that were not chosen that the field was competitive, that there was a lot of interest and how we made the decisions. He then, fairly, raised the issue of appeals. He will know—we were both party to the discussion—that the check, challenge and appeal process that we are now adopting will significantly cut down the time taken for appeals. We are working alongside those that are appealing to cut down the time further. Considerable work needs to be done, but we are progressing that.
Lastly, the noble Lord, again fairly, raised the issue of Section 31 overpayments. We have taken the decision not to claw back the overpayment for the last financial year, so to that extent the authorities affected are all better off by virtue of that, but for the next financial year, 2018-19, we have decided that we are not going to overpay. Those authorities will get the correct amount of money. It is not as if we are clawing it back, as it has not been paid yet, but it will be a lesser amount than we were proposing to pay, because we got the figures wrong in the department. Mea culpa on that—lessons are being learned and there are red faces. As I say, this has resulted in a windfall for those authorities overpaid last year, but we are ensuring that this year we pay the correct amount—some £80 million less than it would have been if the error had not been spotted.
I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their support. I will ensure that I respond to them on the points that I was unable to deal with, particularly the technical one about the figures and letters in the schedules. As I say, I am grateful for their support and I commend the regulations to the Committee.