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Business Rate Supplements Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, that I did not think he was at all evasive in his response to the first question. I expected to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, has a diplomatic sniffle, but apparently not. The noble Lord has been very honest and straightforward. He has been dealt a difficult—indeed, I think impossible—hand. I shall pick up on a few points. The noble Lord talked about the importance of engagement with the business community. A vote in a ballot is the greatest form of engagement and is complementary to a preceding consultation but different from it. He said that a ballot should be left to the levying authority and that the Government do not want to be overly prescriptive, so why put in anything at all about it; why pick on one third? He also said that if the BRS is a small proportion, the whole agony would be irrelevant. It would have to be a necessary part because of the extraordinarily stringent tests to prove additionality that we know about from the guidance fleshing out the statutory requirement for additionality which has been issued so far. He said that BRS would be relatively marginal, which I think is the same point. It may be proportionately small for a particular project, but it will not be marginal. By definition, it has to be important. The noble Lord said that banks might not be willing to fund if a project is dependent on a ballot. I cannot see banks being particularly happy if they know that there is going to be an uprising among the business community, with all the dangers that would present. He also said that we are showing a level of distrust of local authorities. That is simply not the point. As the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said, this is a point of principle. We are told that the line has to be drawn somewhere. I do not believe that there needs to be a line. I beg to test the opinion of the House. Division on Amendment 1 Contents 132; Not-Contents 125. Amendment 1 agreed.