Business Rate Supplements Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who joined in supporting the amendment. I am grateful also to the Minister, because it is clear that he has done his best to try to reassure us that everything will be all right on the night. We shall have to wait and see. There is no doubt that there is a lot of anxiety on the part of the billing authorities in London. They will want to study carefully what the Minister said. They are of course mindful of the benefits, as he said. They all support the Crossrail project and recognise that part of the finance for it was going to be found through contributions from business, hence this Bill. An impact statement will be welcome—I am grateful for that. I am not quite certain that the Minister recognises that the commitment under the new burden doctrine is that those new burdens should be "fully funded". If he would like to intervene and say, "Yes, that is quite right. That is what I meant", I should happily give way.