Lord Addington (LD)

My Lords, once again, if it comes to sporting events, I have a bit of reminiscing to do. I can remember a very good little row we had on the Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill about changing local taxation; it was a bedroom tax that some people saw as a way of solving local government finance problems in Birmingham. It was then pointed out that there were only two weeks allowed for this process. I think it would have been quite a high surcharge that would have benefited the hoteliers of Wolverhampton and Coventry if it had been brought in. If we get an idea about timescale, it becomes very important that it is adequately placed, and that is in the tradition of what we have done. Making sure that that continues to apply means we are taking a new piece of legislation and applying it to a tradition of what we have done in legislation: there are shorter periods needed for things, and these are exceptional circumstances. If we are going to do that, we are fine. Not allowing these things to become permanent is a fair point here, because they are very unusual things. Indeed, the entire premise of the Bill is that we are doing stuff for extraordinary circumstances. I hope that the Government will give a reply that reassures the noble Lord that his amendment is not necessary, but I think it probably was worth while to give us the idea of the aim of it. These are short-term measures.