My Lords, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, said—not for the first time, on a variety of subjects. When we debated in Grand Committee a couple of weeks ago, it was a very peculiar and unsatisfactory situation. The date had been changed twice. I do not particularly complain about that—it was nothing to do with the ghastly, terrible tragedy of the murder of Sir David Amess; it was changed irrespective of that—but there should have been a proper Second Reading and there should have been proper consultation with those such as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and others who had indicated an interest in the Bill.
My interest is entirely with Clause 1, and I will not say anything later, because I will not move my amendments. They were tabled with advice from the clerks, for which I am extremely grateful, merely to try to ensure that the Bill would not come into force until at least six months after we knew about the distribution of the £1.5 billion. We may return to that on Report—I take it that there will be a proper Report on the Floor of the House, because we are not allowed to vote in Committee, for reasons we all know, appreciate and understand.
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I declared an interest at the beginning of the last debate when I pointed out that, for almost 50 years, I have from time to time given advice to the Machinery Users’ Association, which has been in being since 1884. I know that the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, knows about it. It has a variety of members from commerce and industry, and a number of chambers of commerce. I cited a couple of instances of those who were suffering because they do not know what would happen.
Since we had the substitute Second Reading, as I will call it, I have had a very interesting letter from the public affairs manager of Heathrow Airport, an organisation with which I have no connection whatever. This is very germane to our discussions, just as the language school that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, referenced was. She points out that the £1.5 billion business rates relief fund is to be split between 170,000 businesses, and that would work out at an average of £9,000 a business. As she points out, this pales into insignificance
“in comparison with Heathrow’s £120 million annual business rates bill.”
It has had, from the airport and ground operations support scheme, roughly 7% help in that.
I know it is not fashionable to speak up for airports, particularly this week, but we do depend on them. As we move to tackle climate change properly, we shall depend more and more on them and the development of more fuel-efficient aircraft, et cetera. It is a serious matter if our greatest national airport—please do not misunderstand me; I am not arguing for another runway —is put in jeopardy in any way.
The public affairs manager goes on to say, and I make the plea to my noble friend the Minister, that it really is important that details be provided “before legislation is passed”, or at least, as I mentioned, before it comes into force. There is an element of retrospective legislation here. Any decent parliamentarian is fundamentally opposed to retrospective legislation. It is “a bad thing”, in the words of 1066 and All That, compounded by an uncertainty that touches every business or payer of business rates in the country. It really is as serious and wide-reaching as that.
My view is that there should have been two Bills before your Lordships’ House, one dealing with this issue and the other dealing with the very important issue of those who defraud the system. I totally accept its importance; as I said when we had our substitute Second Reading, you cannot get much lower than defrauding help intended for business in a pandemic. Of course it needs dealing with, but there should have been two separate short Bills, not this one effectively hybrid Bill. I do not like it or anything to do with it as far as the constitutional position is concerned. We had great rows over hybrid Bills in the other place when I was there. It is not good and neither is retrospective legislation.
I say to my noble friend, at the very least put out of their misery those who are going to be affected. This applies to local authorities, which are the beneficiaries, as well as the companies paying the business rates. Please let us know before this Bill comes into force how this money will be distributed, and please tell us when an announcement to that effect will be made.