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Business Rate Supplements Bill

The amendment puzzled me because it seemed to be inconsistent with the noble Lord’s other concerns but, having heard him speak, I think that he is probing what is meant, rather than seeking to take the provision out of the Bill. It gives me an opportunity to ask the Minister to say a little more about a term used in the consultation on the draft guidance on additionality, which is "existing available funding"—that local authorities should be able to demonstrate that the BRS would add to existing available funding and how it would fit with other available funding packages. It seemed to me, when reading and rereading that paragraph, that to assess what is available is not quite as easy as it might initially appear. Funding may become available when the last bit of the jigsaw, which might be the BRS, is slotted into place; the funding exists somewhere but the BRS makes it available for the project because of the local authority’s own commitment. I hope the Minister can reassure me that if that is the situation, the additionality test would be passed and not failed. To turn it around, it is the BRS that ensures that all the funding comes together. One must expect that there would be situations where the private sector would say, "We will invest in this project if we have a commitment from the local authority for it". It would be against the spirit of what the Government have been saying if in that situation the whole thing failed because the additionality test was failed.