Business Rates: Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Debate
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Bobby Dean
Main Page: Bobby Dean (Liberal Democrat - Carshalton and Wallington)Department Debates - View all Bobby Dean's debates with the HM Treasury
Business Rates: Retail, Hospitality and Leisure
Bobby Dean Excerpts(1 day, 12 hours ago)
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Dan Tomlinson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making the important point that the last Government had no plans to continue to extend the pandemic support. As for his other question, I will not comment today on the speculation. He and others can see the words that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have said about this matter at the Dispatch Box and during various media interviews, and I have no more to say about it.
Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
As has been mentioned, in its manifesto Labour committed itself to reforming the business rates system, and the Red Book for the Budget referred to
“permanently lower business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure”.
That will have given business owners the impression that their bills would be lower. The Government’s get-out about the rates being low, when they knew that transitional reliefs were being phased out and rateable values were rising substantially, is not cutting it with businesses that made plans accordingly. Last week, we on the Treasury Committee heard from the Valuation Office Agency that the Government had known for more than a year about the size of the increase in rateable values, so why has this backlash taken them by surprise?
Dan Tomlinson
As I have said, the Government were aware that a revaluation was taking place. That revaluation, which was initiated by the last Government, took account of property values in 2024, and will be in place from April this year. We were also aware—and Members in all parts of the House would probably agree on this—that by the end of the decade it would not be appropriate to retain the full pandemic relief almost 10 years after the height of the pandemic. In the round, as a result of those decisions, we came forward with a significant package of £4.3 billion of protection for businesses across the country—large and small, high street and non-high street—to help them adjust to the potential for higher bills that some are experiencing. Let me add that, as I said in my opening remarks, the business rates bills of about 50% of businesses are either flat or falling.