Business Rate Supplements Bill

My Lords, I apologise to the House for the error both in this amendment and in the reference in Amendment 6. Amendment 5 should read "page 23, line 38" and Amendment 6 should read "page 24, line 8". I shall speak to Amendments 6 to 12 as well as to Amendment 5. I am grateful to the Bill team, who telephoned me this morning having identified which paragraphs should have been referred to from the questions which I had emailed to them and which I intend to raise under this group of amendments. I apologise to the House for the confusion that the errors may have caused. I apologise also for being somewhat telegraphic in my speaking to the amendments. I have given notice of my questions, as I have said, and I am not sure, given the Statement which is to follow, that the House would want me to spell things out in greater detail than I intend. The Public Bill Office accepted the amendments with no demur, even though they are to the schedule, which was agreed, albeit reluctantly, by the House at the previous stage. The amendments deal mostly with questions asked by my noble friend Lord Tope, to which the noble Lord then dealing with the matter was unable to give any answers. Although I have used the "leave out" device, these are probing amendments, albeit at a late stage, in order to gain a greater understanding of a number of particular matters within the new schedule. Amendment 5 relates to paragraph 2(2) under which it does not matter whether the BID arrangements are yet in force. How will that affect the renewal of a BID? Which is day one for the purpose of the two-year provision under Section 54 of the 2003 Act? As regards paragraph 2(5), Amendment 6 is tabled to ask whether local discretion as to offsetting is affected. Paragraph 5(7)—Amendment 7—deals with where both the occupier and the owner vote. For the purposes of the calculations on the ballot—the double lock—is the rateable value doubled because two parties are taking part in the ballot? The next amendment is regarding paragraph 6(3) asking—this will be particularly telegraphic—whether it is proper for the authority to cherry pick. Paragraphs 6(2)(a) and (b) do not seem to be related to the different circumstances spelt out in paragraph 6(1). Amendment 9—paragraph 6(4)—is to ask for an explanation of weighting. Given the double lock related to the number and value, which comes from the original legislation, is this weighting an addition? How is that double lock affected? Amendment 10—paragraph 7(2)—is to ask whether this will exactly replicate the veto arrangements in Section 51 of the 2003 legislation. My confusion is that a later paragraph, paragraph 9, applies part of Section 51 specifically, so I am not sure why that part of paragraph 9 was necessary. Finally, there are two slightly different amendments that both apply to paragraph 9(1). As regards Amendment 11, I think what is meant is the words "as if they were", as the phrases "as if they were" and "as if they apply to" are not synonymous. That is for clarity. The last amendment is to ask why Section 52(2) of the 2003 Act, which deals with regulations about appeals, is not specifically incorporated. Generally, I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, in response to the questions, which now take the form of these amendments, relied on the regulations and on the consultation that will precede them. My underlying concern is to be certain that the regulations will work; in other words, that the primary legislation provides precisely the correct basis for regulations which are—if I can put it this way—not yet even in chrysalis form. I beg to move.