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Business Rate Supplements Bill

We are speeding up to finish this before the witching hour of 7.45 pm. Amendment 59 would provide for expenses incurred in preparation for collection or recovery of the BRS to be recovered under Clause 22. Amendment 60 would take out the subsection about the administrative expenses to be paid by the levying authority not exceeding the amount prescribed in regulations. On that second point, I would have thought it should be the actual amount that is borne by the levying authority. Generally, I do not believe that the billing authorities should be out of pocket. That point has been made in particular by London Councils, and it applies more broadly. In London, there is a particular point, in that it will be the first area to have a BRS and it will play a pathfinder role. It will have set-up costs, software upgrades and so on, which will benefit those who follow after. Those additional costs incurred by the boroughs should be recognised and the costs repaid. London Councils made the quite proper points that these matters should be in the Bill and not in regulations, which are relatively easily changed, and that the recovery of costs is a point of principle. I beg to move.