Draft West Of England Combined Authority (Business Rate Supplements Functions) Order 2018

Darren Jones Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 General Committees

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate as the Member for Bristol North West, which is under the West of England combined authority. I just want to raise a couple of points on behalf of my constituents.

The first—I hope the Minister can clarify this today—is around the conversation that took place to show that local businesses were fully consulted on and aware of this increase in business rates and therefore support it, at a time when, for many businesses on the high street, this is a challenging expenditure in terms of their cash flow.

Secondly, in terms of the governance over how business rates pools are spent, we have the local enterprise partnership board and the West of England combined authority board, where decisions are made by a panel of mayors and leaders. We now have this additional pot of funding, over which decisions are taken solely by the Mayor. Will the Minister clarify what governance arrangements might be in place to ensure accountable and fair spending of this money in the interests of constituents right across the West of England combined authority?