Business Rates

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am very grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Mr Speaker for affording me this opportunity to have a long dilation on the subject of business rates. I am under no illusion: I do not think my popularity is why so many people are present. It is all to do with the popularity of and the worry about business rates and their effect on our high streets up and down the country. I am sure Members will have an infinite number of examples of how their high streets have been disadvantaged by the impact of business rates.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has misled the House, although unwittingly. He is very popular; it is his natural humbleness and modesty that prevails upon us today. In Ledbury, which has one of the finest high streets in Christendom, there are only two shops that are part of the chains that can be seen on ordinary high streets, yet the shops in my constituency, like those everywhere else, are under tremendous pressure. More and more of them are becoming charity shops. Although none of us has anything against that, it is surely a sign of a deep unhealthiness in our high streets.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Ledbury comes second in Christendom after Cirencester, which is beaten by no high street town in this country. My hon. Friend is right, of course. The 80% rate relief that charitable shops get encourages a large number of them. I have a substantial number in Cirencester, although they are in the secondary streets, rather than the main square. I can perhaps beat Ledbury, in that I had only one major chain in my constituency. It was the House of Fraser, and it has recently gone bust, so as far as I know, I have no major high street chain in my constituency.