Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Baroness Wheatcroft and Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Baroness Wheatcroft
I gather from the Minister that the capacity to expand borrowing would not be there, so this would just be a different way of raising money, but it would be a way of involving the local community far more. As I understand it, the Bill is aimed at building local communities and pushing power to the people. I accept that this is not without qualms. There are questions to be asked—noble Lords have raised them—but I was delighted with the support for the general direction of travel, which is after all in line with our wish to devolve more power to the community and to build those communities. I hope that there may be scope for the Minister to spend some time working with me and others who support the general drift of this amendment to try to come up with something that we might bring back at a later stage.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
From the noble Baroness’s response to the Minister’s point about borrowing capacity, I am still not clear whether she expects this ability to raise what would otherwise be capital expenditure to add to the PSBR.
Baroness Wheatcroft
There are clearly issues to be worked out. I am very flexible about this. It is the principle of getting local people involved in funding local facilities that I really want to pursue, and I hope that I can have talks that will enable me to do that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.