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Business Rate Supplements Bill

Having served on the Public Bill Committee, I pay tribute to the Minister for the work that was done during the evidence-gathering sessions. We had the opportunity to carry out a pretty full analysis of what the Bill was about. However, I endorse the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). He did not serve on the Committee, but he recognises the Bill's huge importance to the financing of large-scale infrastructure projects; I suspect that it will even go beyond that. That will affect our constituents throughout the UK, not least because much of this money will be raised through a supplementary charge on local businesses during difficult times. It is regrettable that these constraints have been imposed by business managers; I accept that the Minister may not necessarily be directly to blame. Given that other elements of our business have fallen away quite easily, and that may well apply to much of the work in the next week or two, given what is likely to be dealt with, it is surprising that this did not warrant a full day's debate instead of being truncated to four hours. Given that the motion is likely to go to a vote, the danger is that the longer I and colleagues speak in this debate, the more we reduce the amount of time available for proper scrutiny, and there are important matters to be debated later on. This is regrettable. I hope that even if the Minister decides not to take on board our concerns at this juncture, he will at least consider them and ensure that when we discuss such crucial Bills in the future involving tax-raising we can deal with them properly.