Local Government Finance Bill (Third sitting)

Peter Aldous Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Thomas]

I would not dream of ignoring your guidance on that matter, Mr Gapes.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I will just comment on what the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West has said. The process he talked about has been going on for centuries—

[The Chair]

Order.

[Peter Aldous]

I am just coming on to my point, Mr Gapes—

[The Chair]

Order. The hon. Member obviously did not hear me. I do not think we are going to get into a discussion about coastal erosion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Thomas]

I do not want to upset you, Mr Gapes, any further than the hon. Member for Waveney has already done, so I will not go down that route. However, if the hon. Gentleman has another point of intervention, I will happily give way to him on something different.

[Peter Aldous]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. Mr Gapes, I fully respect your views but I just could not resist making that point.

The hon. Gentleman is right to make his point about the importance of the areas that are disadvantaged by this change—I made the point myself on Second Reading. However, is he not aware that, for a very long time, local government has been crying out to keep all its business rates, which is why local government supports the Bill in its round form and is not supportive of his amendment?

[Mr Thomas]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, because it is certainly true that local government associations up and down the country support the principle of 100% business rates retention, as indeed do Labour Members. However, I say gently to him that, as the case of his local authority exemplifies, the devil is in the detail. Surely he recognises that the Bill is the opportunity to try to establish how Ministers will operate the detailed implementation of aspects of the measures that are pivotal to the success or otherwise of 100% business rates retention. Redistribution, which was pivotal to the contributions of so many hon. Members on Second Reading, is fundamental to the success or otherwise of the Bill. It would be a tragedy if the support, tentative as it is in some places, for 100% business rates retention were to disappear, and if many local authorities lose out, because the Government get the fair funding review wrong, or because the regulations that implement the Bill in practice do not have sufficient and effective scrutiny.

I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that he is right that the principle is supported, but it is supported more loudly by those authorities that have a high business rates income and that see the potential for economic development because they have access to land. Authorities such as Allerdale Borough Council that are trapped in terms of the space they have for economic development might be more worried about the detailed implementation of the Bill. Obviously, the hon. Gentleman will not dwell on coastal erosion, because he would just upset the Chairman, but I hope he will think more about the question of redistribution and use his substantial influence with Ministers to encourage them to think through it.